Mockery Gap by T. F. Powys

the Bible, but both these had the good or ill fortune—as one likes to take it—of dying of whooping-cough .
    He preached about Mr. Gulliver’s daughter the Sunday of her christening, explaining that though we hear very little about the other Mary in the Holy Book, she must have been very good and very plain. ‘This little one will not be beautiful, but she will be good,’ said Mr. Pattimore.
    As soon as Mary Gulliver could run, the Mockery children, a sad and naughty crew, would run after her and call out, ‘You bain’t nothing, you be only t’ other maiden.’
    Mr. Pattimore had faith in his Simon, who of course was Peter too, the first name of the Keeper of the Keys being to Mr. Pattimore the best to be called by.
    When he looked out of the window—he would turn away if Mrs. Pattimore passed by—Mr. Pattimore would sometimes see Rebecca running round the vicarage garden or Mr. Cheney’s rick-yard that was near by, having left the vicarage kitchen for a minute or two, and being followed by Simon.
    What happened behind the hedge if Simon caught her Mr. Pattimore wished the Dean would tell, but the Dean would only look sternly out of his frame at the half-written sermon upon the gentleman’s table.
    From the same window, too, Mr. Pattimore would sometimes notice of an evening a spot of colour upon or near to the green mound of Mockery cliff. This colour would reveal itself to Mr. Pattimore as the other Mary. But sometimes she would appear to be overshadowed by something more drab and common than her own pretty frock could ever be, and Mr. Pattimore would soon notice a figure near to her that appeared to be Master Simon’s.
    And again, too, at the other window, from which the Mockery wood could be seen as well as the sea, Dinah might be noticed going to the wood for sticks, as she often did—but not always alone, for Dinah’s nature was both free and loving, and even Mrs. Topple would rise up from her knees in the field where she had been looking and not praying, and watch for her return; for Dinah would sometimes run out of the wood laughing.
    Having seen so much and so far, Mr. Pattimore, the very afternoon of the day when his wife had been led down to the sea by the pretty cowslips and had watched the fisherman near to Mr. Gulliver’s cows, decided to go to the Cheneys and at least to ask, not perhapswhat heavenly doors Master Simon had been unlocking with his keys, but at least whether he was as good a boy as his name should have made him.
    Mr. Pattimore approached the Cheney abode with quick steps. The house, a fine tall one, four hundred years old, and the ancient manor of the Roddys when the family lived upon their own lands, stood in the midst of the Mockery valley among its barns and out-buildings.
    Mr. Pattimore never looked at what he walked upon. Flowers he supposed grew in Mockery as well as grass and babies. He had named the babies, and they should all have grown up as good as their names.
    ‘Dinah!’ Yes, but then the Bible maiden had gone into no wood with Simon Peter; though even she hadn’t been altogether good.
    A pleasant path it was that Mr. Pattimore walked in, a pleasant path, with the afternoon sun and the fair haze of summer warming all things about him. But he, with the fine idea of being akin to a Dean, and of even taking his place one day though he hadn’t an aunt in a king’s palace, brought and kept for ever these thoughts of grander things than mere buttercups.
    But even he with such fine thoughts decided that he couldn’t stay for all the rest of his life at Mr. Cheney’s front door, which, after the proper habit and custom of all farmhouses, was securely bolted, and the ringing of the bellwas of no more use than would have been the pulling at the ivy that hung beside the door, except perhaps to shake out the earwigs.
    Mr. Pattimore looked at his watch—it had been his father’s; he rang the bell at regular intervals for a quarter of an hour, and then, seeing that the