The distance we had to go was
nearly two miles, and my mother and I drove thither in a donkey
chair, which had been hunted up in London for that purpose because
the 'pheeaton' (as the servants insisted on calling it) was too high
for me. My father had an old-fashioned feeling about the Fourth
Commandment, which made him scrupulous as to using any animal on
Sunday; and even when, in bad weather, or for visitors, the larger
carriage was used, he always walked. He was really angry with Griff
that morning for mischievously maintaining that it was a greater
breach of the commandment to work an ass than a horse.
It was a pretty drive on a road slanting gradually through the
brushwood that clothed the steep face of the hillside, and passing
farms and meadows full of cattle--all things quieter and stiller
than ever in their Sunday repose. We knew that the living was in
Winslow patronage, but that it was in the hands of one of the Selby
connection, who held it, together with it is not safe to say how
many benefices, and found it necessary for his health to reside at
Bath. The vicarage had long since been turned into a farmhouse, and
the curate lived at Wattlesea. All this we knew, but we had not
realised that he was likewise assistant curate there, and only
favoured Earlscombe with alternate morning and evening services on
Sundays.
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