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Updated: May 18, 2025
As he made an easy escape from the coach-house at Dacrefield, it was always supposed that he simply followed the carriage, and had the wit to hide himself when we stopped on the road. He was terribly tired. He might well be thirsty! I levied large contributions on the box of rusks which Aunt Maria had left by my bedside, for his benefit, and he supped well.
When Aunt Maria came to visit us she gladly renewed acquaintance with Mr. Clerke, who was a great favourite of hers. I think she imagined that he was presented to Dacrefield on the strength of her approval. She used to say to me, "You know Reginald, I always told your father that Mr. Clerke was a most spiritual preacher."
But after seeing him as Rector of Dacrefield, she added, "He's getting much too 'high. Quite like that extraordinary creature you had here before. But it's always the way with young men." Uncle Ascott did not publicly undertake Mr.
"You say nothing," I went on. "Probably I am altogether wrong, and you are too kind-hearted to tell me I am an impertinent puppy. It is Dacrefield the place only that you honour with your regard. You have no affection for " Maria did not let me finish this sentence.
Mind you work up old Mother Hubbard to a sumptuous provision of grub for next half, and don't forget the other grubs. Would that I could dig with thee for them. Vale! "Thine ever, Of course this ended in Leo's being invited to Dacrefield. He came, and, wonderful to relate, we got Polly too. My father invited her and my aunt to visit us, and they came.
About this time I firmly resolved to be a parson when I grew up. My great practical difficulty on this head was that I must, of course, live at Dacrefield, and yet I could not be the Rector. My final decision I announced to Mr. Andrewes. "Mr. Clerke and I will always be curates, and work under you."
But I had seen more of Maria during a visit I paid to London two months before than usual, and had been quite surprised to find her so well versed in Dacrefield matters. "It's uncommonly pleasant having you here," said I, as we leaned over a low wall in the garden. "I wonder we do not become perfect barbarians, cut off as we are from ladies' society.
Besides, though Maria was strongly interested in Dacrefield for Clerke's sake, she knew much less of it than Polly, with whom I revisited numberless haunts of our childhood, the barns and stables, the fernery, the "Pulpit" and the "Pew." I did not tell her of my romance with Maria. I was not proud of it.
The stone that marks the burying-place of the Andrewes family taught me the secret of the special love the Rector bore me. It recorded the deaths of his wife Margaret, and of his son Reginald. The child was born in the same year as myself. Mr. Jonathan Andrewes came to Dacrefield on business connected with his brother's affairs, and he accepted my father's hospitality at the Hall.
The expedition was very successful, and we all returned in safety to Dacrefield; rather, I think, to the astonishment of some of the good-wives of the village, who looked upon any one who passed the parish bounds as a traveller, and thought our jaunt to Oakford "venturesome" almost to a "tempting of Providence."
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