“My father will be delighted to see you, I know, sir.  He can’t get so far as the church on Sundays; but you’ll find him much more to your mind than me.  He’s been putting ever so many questions to me about the new parson, wanting me to try whether I couldn’t get more out of you than the old parson.  That’s the way we talk about you, you see, sir.  You’ll understand.  And I’ve never told him that I’d been to church since you came—­I suppose from a bit of pride, because I had so long lefused to go; but I don’t doubt some of the neighbours have told him, for he never speaks about it now.  And I know he’s been looking out for you; and I fancy he’s begun to wonder that the parson was going to see everybody but him.  It will be a pleasure to the old man, sir, for he don’t see a great many to talk to; and he’s fond of a bit of gossip, is the old man, sir.”

So saying, Weir led the way through the shop into a lobby behind, and thence up what must have been a back-stair of the old house, into a large room over the workshop.  There were bits of old carving about the walls of the room yet, but, as in the shop below, all had been whitewashed.  At one end stood a bed with chintz curtains and a warm-looking counterpane of rich faded embroidery.  There was a bit of carpet by the bedside, and another bit in front of the fire; and there the old man sat, on one side, in a high-backed not very easy-looking chair.  With a great effort he managed to rise as I approached him, notwithstanding my entreaties that he would not move.  He looked much older when on his feet, for he was bent nearly double, in which posture the marvel was how he could walk at all.  For he did totter a few steps to meet me, without even the aid of a stick, and, holding out a thin, shaking hand, welcomed me with an air of breeding rarely to be met with in his station in society.  But the chief part of this polish sprung from the inbred kindliness of his nature, which was manifest in the expression of his noble old countenance.  Age is such a different thing in different natures!  One man seems to grow more and more selfish as he grows older; and in another the slow fire of time seems only to consume, with fine, imperceptible gradations, the yet lingering selfishness in him, letting the light of the kingdom, which the Lord says is within, shine out more and more, as the husk grows thin and is ready to fall off, that the man, like the seed sown, may pierce the earth of this world, and rise into the pure air and wind and dew of the second life.  The face of a loving old man is always to me like a morning moon, reflecting the yet unrisen sun of the other world, yet fading before its approaching light, until, when it does rise, it pales and withers away from our gaze, absorbed in the source of its own beauty.  This old man, you may see, took my fancy wonderfully, for even at this distance of time, when I am old myself, the recollection of his beautiful old face makes me feel as if I could write poetry about him.