It is certain that one dreadful day Dick's letter
contained nothing but a sheet of note-paper.
"I can send you no more cheques" (wrote the parson), "not another
penny will you receive from me. I pray to God that He may see fit to
turn your heart, for He alone can do it. I have failed ..."
Dick showed this letter to his last and only friend, the ex-deacon,
the Rev. Tudor Crisp, known to many publicans and sinners as the
'Bishop.' The two digested the parson's words in a small cabin
situated upon a pitiful patch of ill-cultivated land; land
irreclaimably mortgaged to the hilt, which the 'Bishop' spoke of as
"my place." Dick (he had a sense of humour) always called the cabin
the rectory. It contained one unplastered, unpapered room, carpetless
and curtainless; a bleak and desolate shelter that even a sheep-herder
would be loth to describe as home. In the corners were two truckle
beds, a stove, and a large demijohn containing some cheap and fiery
whisky; in the centre of the floor was a deal table; on the rough
redwood walls were shelves displaying many dilapidated pairs of boots
and shoes, also some fly-specked sporting prints, and, upon a row of
nails, a collection of shabby discoloured garments, ancient "hartogs,"
manifesting even in decay a certain jaunty, dissolute air, at once
ludicrous and pathetic.
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