Short Fiction M. R. James (good book recommendations TXT) 📖

enclosing stone screen. Quite plain, as the Verger had said, but for some ordinary stone panelling. A metal cross of some size on the northern side (that next to the screen) was the solitary feature of any interest.

Lake agreed that it was not earlier than the Perpendicular period: “but,” he said, “unless it’s the tomb of some remarkable person, you’ll forgive me for saying that I don’t think it’s particularly noteworthy.”

“Well, I can’t say as it is the tomb of anybody noted in ’istory,” said Worby, who had a dry smile on his face, “for we don’t own any record whatsoever of who it was put up to. For all that, if you’ve half an hour to spare, sir, when we get back to the house, Mr. Lake, I could tell you a tale about that tomb. I won’t begin on it now; it strikes cold here, and we don’t want to be dawdling about all night.”

“Of course I should like to hear it immensely.”

“Very well, sir, you shall. Now if I might put a question to you,” he went on, as they passed down the choir aisle, “in our little local guide⁠—and not only there, but in the little book on our Cathedral in the series⁠—you’ll find it stated that this portion of the building was erected previous to the twelfth century. Now of course I should be glad enough to take that view, but⁠—mind the step, sir⁠—but, I put it to you⁠—does the lay of the stone ’ere in this portion of the wall (which he tapped with his key) does it to your eye carry the flavour of what you might call Saxon masonry? No, I thought not; no more it does to me: now, if you’ll believe me, I’ve said as much to those men⁠—one’s the librarian of our Free Libry here, and the other came down from London on purpose⁠—fifty times, if I have once, but I might just as well have talked to that bit of stonework. But there it is, I suppose everyone’s got their opinions.”

The discussion of this peculiar trait of human nature occupied Mr. Worby almost up to the moment when he and Lake re-entered the former’s house. The condition of the fire in Lake’s sitting-room led to a suggestion from Mr. Worby that they should finish the evening in his own parlour. We find them accordingly settled there some short time afterwards.

Mr. Worby made his story a long one, and I will not undertake to tell it wholly in his own words, or in his own order. Lake committed the substance of it to paper immediately after hearing it, together with some few passages of the narrative which had fixed themselves verbatim in his mind; I shall probably find it expedient to condense Lake’s record to some extent.

Mr. Worby was born, it appeared, about the year 1828. His father before him had been connected with the Cathedral, and likewise his grandfather. One or both had been choristers, and in later life both had done work as mason and carpenter respectively about the fabric. Worby himself, though possessed, as he frankly acknowledged, of an indifferent voice, had been drafted into the choir at about ten years of age.

It was in 1840 that the wave of the Gothic revival smote the Cathedral of Southminster. “There was a lot of lovely stuff went then, sir,” said Worby, with a sigh. “My father couldn’t hardly believe it when he got his orders to clear out the choir. There was a new dean just come in⁠—Dean Burscough it was⁠—and my father had been ’prenticed to a good firm of joiners in the city, and knew what good work was when he saw it. Crool it was, he used to say: all that beautiful wainscot oak, as good as the day it was put up, and garlands-like of foliage and fruit, and lovely old gilding work on the coats of arms and the organ pipes. All went to the timber yard⁠—every bit except some little pieces worked up in the Lady Chapel, and ’ere in this overmantel. Well⁠—I may be mistook, but I say our choir never looked as well since. Still there was a lot found out about the history of the church, and no doubt but what it did stand in need of repair. There was very few winters passed but what we’d lose a pinnicle.” Mr. Lake expressed his concurrence with Worby’s views of restoration, but owns to a fear about this point lest the story proper should never be reached. Possibly this was perceptible in his manner.

Worby hastened to reassure him, “Not but what I could carry on about that topic for hours at a time, and do do when I see my opportunity. But Dean Burscough he was very set on the Gothic period, and nothing would serve him but everything must be made agreeable to that. And one morning after service he appointed for my father to meet him in the choir, and he came back after he’d taken off his robes in the vestry, and he’d got a roll of paper with him, and the verger that was then brought in a table, and they begun spreading it out on the table with prayer books to keep it down, and my father helped ’em, and he saw it was a picture of the inside of a choir in a Cathedral; and the Dean⁠—he was a quick spoken gentleman⁠—he says, ‘Well, Worby, what do you think of that?’ ‘Why,’ says my father, ‘I don’t think I ’ave the pleasure of knowing that view. Would that be Hereford Cathedral, Mr. Dean?’ ‘No, Worby,’ says the Dean, ‘that’s Southminster Cathedral as we hope to see it before many years.’ ‘In-deed, sir,’ says my father, and that was all he did say⁠—leastways to the Dean⁠—but he used to tell me he felt really faint in himself when he looked round our choir as I can remember it, all comfortable and furnished-like, and then see this nasty little dry picter, as