It was the first Sunday in July. Under a sky of pure and cloudless blue the village of St. Rest lay cradled in floral and foliage loveliness, with all the glory of the morning sunshine and the full summer bathing it in floods of living gold. It had reached the perfect height of its annual beauty with the full flowering of its orchards and fields, and with all the wealth of colour which was flung like spray against the dark brown thatched roofs of its clustering cottages by the masses of roses, red and white, that clambered as high as the tops of the chimneys, and turning back from thence, dropped downwards again in a tangle of blossoms, and twined over latticed windows with a gay and gracious air like garlands hung up for some great festival. The stillness of the Seventh Day's pause was in the air,--even the swallows, darting in and out from their prettily contrived nests under the bulging old-fashioned eaves, seemed less busy, less active on their bright pinions, and skimmed to and fro with a gliding ease, suggestive of happy indolence and peace.
The doors of the church were set wide open,--and Adam Frost, sexton and verger, was busy inside the building, placing the chairs, as was his usual Sunday custom, in orderly rows for the coming congregation. It was about half-past ten, and the bell-ringers, arriving and ascending into the belfry, were beginning to 'tone' the bells before pealing the full chime for the eleven o'clock service, when Bainton, arrayed in his Sunday best, strolled with a casual air into the churchyard, looked round approvingly for a minute or two, and then with some apparent hesitation, entered the church porch, lifting his cap reverently as he did so. Once there, he coughed softly to attract Frost's attention, but that individual was too much engrossed with his work to heed any lesser sound than the grating of the chairs he was arranging. Bainton waited patiently, standing near the carved oaken portal, till by chance the verger turned and saw him, whereupon he beckoned mysteriously with a crook'd forefinger.
"Adam! Hi! A word wi' ye!"
Adam came down the nave somewhat reluctantly, his countenance showing signs of evident preoccupation and harassment.
"What now?" he demanded, in a hoarse whisper-'"Can't ye see I'm busy?"
"O' coorse you're busy--I knows you're busy,"--returned Bainton, soothingly--"I ain't goin' to keep ye back nohow. All I wants to know is, ef it's true?"
"Ef what's true?"
"This 'ere, wot the folks are all a' clicketin' about,--that Miss Vancourt 'as got a party o' Lunnon fash'nables stayin' at the Manor, an' that they're comin' to church this marnin'?"