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28 KIPLING'S SUSSEX
Bishop would sometimes take the key of the wine-cellar ; and he and his chaplaine would go and lock themselves in and be merry ; then first he layes down his episcopal hood, ' There layes the doctor ' ; then he puts off his gowne, ' There layes the bishop' ; then 'twas ' Here's to thee, Corbet' ; ' Here's to thee, Lushington !' "
To read a passage like this is to breathe the air of a more spacious and friendly era, an era when culture and good-fellowship still walked arm-in-arm, and took a bottle of wine together in some snug and lettered tavern. Bishops in these days do not go to the trouble of lamenting loss of fairies, they never unbend, never laugh and never say: " Here's to thee, Lushington ! "
Readers of " Puck of Pook's Hill " will recollect the tale of the Sussex ironworks called " Hal o' the Draft." Hal is a mason restoring old Barnabas Church, and has a friend called Sebastian Cabot, from Bristol way, who is waiting for guns for one of the King's ships. Hal's men will not work, and his materials from Master Collins, the founder, come to hand spaulty or cracked, and all the guns cast for Cabot are alleged to be faulty. Gentle and simple, high and low, all the people of the village are against the church being re-roofed or touched, and Hal feels that the countryside is bewitched. However, the truth of |
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