CHAPTER V.
"He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him: he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; what his heart thinks his tongue speaks."
It is half past eleven o'clock, and we are all in church (save Fane and Captain Oliver), confessing ourselves to be miserable sinners, although in our secret souls we think ourselves nothing of the sort. We are in a big pew that contains besides hassocks and chairs, a carpet, a table, a cupboard, and red curtains, which latter hide us when sitting or kneeling from the open-mouthed, open-eyed gaze of the Luttrell hinds. In former and more unmannerly days the cupboard held good store of cake and wine, of which the squire, his wife and daughters, and the stranger within his gates, partook during the sermon. Rather trying for the poor parson overhead on a hot summer's day, with his parched throat, and secondly, thirdly, and fourthly still before him.
And now we are all standing up, able to take our fill of staring at the well-washed, well-greased congregation, who are singing "Jerusalem the golden," with all the strength of their bucolic hearts and voices.
I wish they had a few H's among them, these good and bad people! They let them all go so recklessly, but with the universal law of compensation, put them in again in the wrong place. How loud and clear presently sounds their "Incline our 'arts to keep this law!" It is no use to struggle against overwhelming numbers; we may as well let ours go with the rest, for we can never leaven the lump. I think that whoever invented the letter H did not sufficiently take into consideration the prevailing tendency of mankind to ease. Aitch! It is a word in itself, and a hard one; in hot weather especially, how comfortably and easily does it slip away altogether!
