This hummock being but the sole swelling on a waste of snowy furze.
And Mr Scablehorne and myself did make for the hummock with our hoods held tight to our faces that we might not be blinded by the snow and did crouch there, it affording in the lee some shelter from the blasts.
Then think, my children, what degree of horror came upon your minister when poor Mr Scablehorne did lean across to me and did part my hood from mine ear and did whisper that our comforting protuberance was none other than that place where certain of the spiritually distracted in our grandparents’ time fell into unspeakable depravity and cavorted lustfully in nakedness upon its flanks and that is called thereby the Devil’s Knob.
Yea, and how often have I cried out for these heathen spots, like that great mound high upon our own southerly flank, called by some filthy name, that I shall not blister my lips with repeating, but that flaunts itself at this our humble house of God — how often have I cried out for these to be removed as a black wen from a face, that no canker might work unseen within, to pollute and foul the rabble? Yea, who was it but he whom ye now see stood before you that rooted up and broke upon a great fire the seven stones of Noon’s Hill?
Think what degree of horror coursed through my frozen joints. And I bid immediately Mr Scablehorne and Mr Kistle to pray aloud, that though our words might be obscured by the loudness of the blasts, we might scatter this wickedness. And I bid to cease from his sniggering poor William Scablehorne, whose wits were already turning in that exceeding discomfort.
My children.
William Scablehorne our clerk for forty years, whose rod was ever vigilant amongst thee for the smallest yawn, whose pitch-pipe did clothe the poverty of our singing with its asseveratory flourishes, whose hand remains in our register as a meticulous record of his attention I perceived was already slipping, my children.
Yet when I did turn to Mr Kistle who was clad in his customary hat and coat that you might recall as being as threadbare as the times, and out at one elbow, and wholly inadequate for the present great cold, I did perceive that in spite of his shuddering exceedingly every limb, he bore upon his face an expression I had never previously viewed upon his attenuated countenance, but which I swiftly ascertained was one of a comfortable elation.
List, my children.
I had indeed been amiss in not keeping a more eager watch on my curate. The dull chafe of our duties oft wears us to forgetfulness. Yea, my despair at the scandalous practices of this parish was all but consuming my will and my attention. Even on that very day not more than one month past when my curate returned from London with an excitable air I discovered, upon entering our vestry, a certain lackey of this village pissing upon the floor. And having with my heaviest candle-bearer cudgelled him out he did swear at me and declaim that it was the action of no Christian to strike a poor man who has Christ seeded inside him. That no fellow, however ragged and mean, might be contemned by those set up above him by riches. And that I was a dunce.
Nay.
Snigger not, my children.
Weep, rather.
Weep that you have sunk this far.
This thine holy house become a piss-pot.
List, list.
Mr Scablehorne being of a sudden flung into a fit of coughing that did spray me with its bloody phlegm, my attention was drawn from my curate. But holding Mr Scablehorne close to me, cradled in mine arm, with a handkercher to his mouth, and the lanthorn up in mine other hand that I might view the sick man and his eructations more proficiently, I was able to turn my head once more towards my curate.
And I did dimly see him staring outwards, with a smile upon his face as of one latterly taken, and I thought he had indeed been taken but that his limbs were still shuddering, and I bid him turn up his collar, and come close, that we might endure together until this wrathfulness had blown itself out.
But he was as the dumb stone, laid over with the gold of my lanthorn. As if there was no breath at all in the midst of him.
I clamoured to him, and putting the lanthorn beside me I shook his arm. And he then did turn to me, moving his lips as if in supplication, that were very blue.
But at that moment Mr Scablehorne being vexed exceedingly with coughing, erubescing the virgin mantle before us with his fluids, and quite sopping my handkercher, I was otherwise preoccupied.
Though putting the bottle of fiery brandy to my poor clerk’s lips, and leaving it there in his ebbing grasp, that he might relieve his agony, I could turn again to my curate. And lo, he was moving his lips.
And leaning closer towards him, I did feel his cold mouth chafing upon mine ear, and the rasp of his collar upon my cheek, and did have the following words deposited in a whisper, but clear as a bell, from my curate:
‘I have Perfection.’
And somewhat startled by this curious yet in these teemingly blasphemous days familiar eruption, I did bid him repeat it.
And again he deposited in mine ear-hole this drop of venom that blistereth as it touches:
‘I have Perfection.’
And putting my mouth to his ear likewise I returned the following:
‘Mr Kistle. Pray tell me what Perfection it is that you are having.’
And he did smile broader, and did say, from Matthew 5, Verse 48, that I did recognise straightway:
‘Be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.’
And put his chill hand upon my shoulder. Like a father might do to a son.
Too well in our own humble parish of Ulverton, my children, know we this chill hand upon the shoulder. This eructation of Perfection.
Of the Light within. Of the Seed of Infinite Wisdom.
Being once the rantings of fools and madmen who are now the quiet of the land, blighting.
Too well. Ah, too well.
Too well know we the enemies of the cloth and of the steeple, of our Church and of our God, my children, that draw the ploughmen from their ploughs and the clerks from their offices. Too well know we the filth glossed over with a semblance of our raiments, breathed forth sourly in every meeting house, that is open to every Revelation of any lying Enthusiast e’en as ridiculous as that of Mahomet, as a broken roof is ope to every drop of rain.
The fig tree shall not blossom, and the labour of the olive shall fail.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
Yea, in that day sing ye unto her a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it. I will water it every moment. Lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.
Think, my children, of what horror there was within me when I heard Simon Kistle speak into mine ear of Perfection as to a dunce. Think how near to the quick has come this blight that mine own curate was breathing it over me and turning it in my bowels who had trodden in my house, and prayed with me, and performed numerous services in my name upon mine own horse when I lay afflicted with the headache, and whom I had trusted as one might a son. Think of my horror.
But ever regardful of the vexed state of our situation, that the blasts or the evil nature of that afflicted place might have deceived mine hearing, after administering to myself some heat from the bottle poor Mr Scablehorne would barely relinquish to me I did turn to Mr Kistle and say to him, in a loud voice, though his nose was but inches from mine own:
‘What is it you mean, that which you uttered but a few minutes past?’
And through the scouring of the wind that was having at us still in the lee of that wicked place he did set his glimmering face up to mine and his whole body shaking or should I say quaking he of a sudden grinned and stroked my arm and answered: