dripped sawdust in little heaps.  Down in the nave, bench-ends leaned askew or had been broken up, built as panels into deal pews, and daubed with paint; the floor was broken and ran in uneven waves; the walls shed plaster, and a monstrous gallery blocked the belfry arch.  Upon this gallery Parson Jack had spent most of his careful, unsightly carpentry, for the simple reason that it had been unsafe; and, for the simple reason that they had let in the rain, he had provided half a dozen windows with new panes, solid enough, but in appearance worthy only to cover cucumbers.

As he entered with Sir Harry, the Rev. Clement Vyell swung round upon him eagerly, but paused with a just perceptible start at sight of his unclerical garb.

“Let me introduce you, Clem.  This is Mr. Flood.”

Parson Jack bowed, and let his eyes travel around the church, which he had often enough pitied, but of which he now for the first time felt ashamed.

“We’re in a sad mess, I’m afraid,” he muttered.

“It’s most interesting, nevertheless,” Clement Vyell answered.  He was a thin-faced youth with a high pedagogic voice.  “Better a church in this condition than one restored out of all whooping—­though I read on the box yonder that you are collecting towards a restoration.”

Parson Jack blushed hotly.

“You have made a start, eh?  What are your funds in hand?”

“Two pounds four shillings—­as yet.”

Sir Harry laughed outright; and after a moment Parson Jack laughed too—­ he could not help it.  But Clement Vyell frowned, having no sense of humour.

“I patch it up, you know—­after a fashion.”  Parson Jack’s tone was humble enough and propitiatory; nevertheless, he glanced at his handiwork with something like pride.  “The windows, for instance—­”

The younger man turned with a shudder.  “I suppose now,” he said abruptly, staring up at an arch connecting the choir-stalls with the southern transept, “this bit of Norman work will be as old as anything you have?”

That it was Norman came as news to Parson Jack.  He, too, stared up at it, resting a palm on a crumbling bench-end.

“Well,” said he ingenuously, “I’m no judge of these things, you know; but I always supposed the tower was the oldest bit.”

He broke off in confusion—­not at his speech, but because Clement Vyell’s eyes were resting on the back of his hand, which shook with a tell-tale palsy.

“The tower,” said the young man icily, “is Perpendicular, and later than 1412, at all events, when a former belfry fell in, destroyed the nave, and cracked the pavement, as you see.  All this is matter of record, as you may learn, sir, from the books which, I feel sure, my uncle will be pleased to lend you.  I need not ask, perhaps, if in the course of your—­ah—­excavations you have come on any traces of the original pre-Augustine Oratory, or of the conventual buildings which existed here till, we are told, the middle of the thirteenth century.”