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go to church by virtue of the obvious limitations of its cubical
content. There was some attempt to satisfy the spirit of that "most
foolish and destructive law"--I quote the Vicar--the Elementary
Education Act of 1870, by getting him to sit outside the open window
while instruction was going on within. But his presence there destroyed
the discipline of the other children. They were always popping up and
peering at him, and every time he spoke they laughed together. His voice
was so odd! So they let him stay away.
Nor did they persist in pressing him to come to church, for his vast
proportions were of little help to devotion. Yet there they might have
had an easier task; there are good reasons for guessing there were the
germs of religious feeling somewhere in that big carcase. The music
perhaps drew him. He was often in the churchyard on a Sunday morning,
picking his way softly among the graves after the congregation had gone
in, and he would sit the whole service out beside the porch, listening
as one listens outside a hive of bees.
At first he showed a certain want of tact; the people inside would hear
his great feet crunch restlessly round their place of worship, or become
aware of his dim face peering in through the stained glass, half
curious, half envious, and at times some simple hymn would catch him
unawares, and he would howl lugubriously in a gigantic attempt at
unison. Whereupon little Sloppet, who was organ-blower and verger and
beadle and sexton and bell-ringer on Sundays, besides being postman and
chimney-sweep all the week, would go out very briskly and valiantly and
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