Chapter II.

       Kirkby Cliffe Church

       Table of Contents

      Kirkby Cliffe Church stands close upon the River Wharfe, about a quarter of a mile from the parsonage, which is on a steep hillside running down from the moors to the stream. A prettier little church or graveyard you shall hardly find in England. Here, no large influx of population has necessitated the removal of the last home of the parishioners from beneath the shelter of the parish church. Every inhabitant of Kirkby Cliffe has, when dead, the privilege of rest among those green hillocks. Within the building is still room for tablets commemorative of the rectors and their wives and families, for there are none others in the parish to whom such honour is accorded. Without the walls, here and there, stand the tombstones of the farmers; while the undistinguished graves of the peasants lie about in clusters which, solemn though they be, are still picturesque.The church itself is old, and may probably be doomed before long to that kind of destruction which is called restoration; but hitherto it has been allowed to stand beneath all its weight of ivy, and has known but little change during the last two hundred years. Its old oak pews, and ancient exalted reading-desk and pulpit are offensive to many who come to see the spot; but Isabel Lownd is of opinion that neither the one nor the other could be touched, in the way of change, without profanation.

      In the very porch Maurice Archer met Mabel, with her arms full of ivy branches, attended by David Drum. “So you have come at last, Master Maurice ?” she said.

      “Come at last! Is that all the thanks I get? Now let me see what it is you’re going to do. Is your sister here?”

      “Of course she is. Barty is up in the pulpit, sticking holly branches round the sounding-board, and she is with him.”

      “T’boorde’s that rotten an’ maaky, it’ll be doon on Miss Is’bel’s heede, an’ Barty Crossgrain ain’t more than or’nary saft-handed,” said the clerk.

      They entered the church, and there it was, just as Mabel had said. The old gardener was standing on the rail of the pulpit, and Isabel was beneath, handing up to him nails and boughs, and giving him directions as to their disposal. “Naa, miss, naa; it wonot do that a-way,” said Barty. “Thou’ll ha’ me o’er on to t’stanes—thou wilt, that a-gait. Lard-a-mussy, miss, thou munnot clim’ up, or thou’lt be doon, and brek thee banes, thee ull!” So saying, Barty Crossgrain, who had contented himself with remonstrating when called upon by his young mistress to imperil his own neck, jumped on to the floor of the pulpit and took hold of the young lady by both her ankles. As he did so, he looked up at her with anxious eyes, and steadied himself on his own feet, as though it might become necessary for him to perform some great feat of activity. All this Maurice Archer saw, and Isabel saw that he saw it. She was not well pleased at knowing that he should see her in that position, held by the legs by the old gardener, and from which she could only extricate herself by putting her hand on the old man’s neck as she jumped down from her perch. But she did jump down, and then began to scold Crossgrain, as though the awkwardness had come from fault of his.

      “I’ve come to help, in spite of the hard words you said to me yesterday, Miss Lownd,” said Maurice, standing on the lower steps of the pulpit. “Couldn’t I get up and do the things at the top?” But Isabel thought that Mr. Archer could not get up and “do the things at the top.” The wood was so far decayed that they must abandon the idea of ornamenting the sounding-board, and so both Crossgrain and Isabel descended into the body of the church.

      Things did not go comfortably with them for the next hour.

      Isabel had certainly invited his cooperation, and therefore could not tell him to go away; and yet, such was her present feeling towards him, she could not employ him profitably, and with ease to herself. She was somewhat angry with him, and more angry with herself. It was not only that she had spoken hard words to him, as he had accused her of doing, but that, after the speaking of the hard words, she had been distant and cold in her manner to him. And yet he was so much to her! she liked him so well!—and though she had never dreamed of admitting to herself that she was in love with him, yet—yet it would be so pleasant to have the opportunity of asking herself whether she could not love him, should he ever give her a fair and open opportunity of searching her own heart on the matter. There had now sprung up some half-quarrel between them, and it was impossible that it could be set aside by any action on her part. She could not be otherwise than cold and haughty in her demeanour to him. Any attempt at reconciliation must come from him, and the longer that she continued to be cold and haughty, the less chance there was that it would come. And yet she knew that she had been right to rebuke him for what he had said. “Christmas a bore!” She would rather lose his friendship for ever than hear such words from his mouth, without letting him know what she thought of them. Now he was there with her, and his coming could not but be taken as a sign of repentance. Yet she could not soften her manners to him, and become intimate with him, and playful, as had been her wont. He was allowed to pull about the masses of ivy, and to stick up branches of holly here and there at discretion; but what he did was done under Mabel’s direction, and not under hers,—with the aid of one of the farmer’s daughters, and not with her aid. In silence she continued to work round the chancel and communion-table, with Crossgrain, while Archer, Mabel, and David Drum used their taste and diligence in the nave and aisles of the little church.Then Mrs. Lownd came among them, and things went more easily; but hardly a word had been spoken between Isabel and Maurice when, after sundry hints from David Drum as to the lateness of the hour, they left the church and went up to the parsonage for their luncheon.

      Isabel stoutly walked on first, as though determined to show that she had no other idea in her head but that of reaching the parsonage as quickly as possible. Perhaps Maurice Archer had the same idea, for he followed her. Then he soon found that he was so far in advance of Mrs. Lownd and the old gardener as to be sure of three minutes’ uninterrupted conversation; for Mabel remained with her mother, making earnest supplication as to the expenditure of certain yards of green silk tape, which she declared to be necessary for the due performance of the work which they had in hand. “Miss Lownd,” said Maurice, “I think you are a little hard upon me.”

      “In what way, Mr. Archer?”

      “You asked me to come down to the church, and you haven’t spoken to me all the time I was there.”

      “I asked you to come and work, not to talk,” she said.

      “You asked me to come and work with you.”

      “I don’t think that I said any such thing; and you came at Mabel’s request, and not at mine. When I asked you, you told me it was all—a bore. Indeed you said much worse than that. I certainly did not mean to ask you again. Mabel asked you, and you came to oblige her. She talked to you, for I heard her; and I was half disposed to tell her not to laugh so much, and to remember that she was in church.”

      “I did not laugh, Miss Lownd.”

      “I was not listening especially to you.”

      “Confess, now,” he said, after a pause; “don’t you know that you misinterpreted me yesterday, and that you took what I said in a different spirit from my own.”

      ‘‘No; I do not know it.”

      “But you did. I was speaking of the holiday part of Christmas, which consists of pudding and beef, and is surely subject to ridicule, if