A Bachelor's Comedy

ANDY still went up to Gaythorpe Manor fairly often to play billiards with Dick Stamford; but the two young men no longer sat chatting after their game, and their talk became rat...

ANDY paid one or two calls in the parish that afternoon and then went into the church to ring the bell for evensong. Clang, clang, cling! Come to church! So it had rung for gene...

WHEN Andy went into the garden next morning he buckled on tight the mantle of the senior curate and advanced across the grass to where Sam Petch was bending over a flower-bed wi...

ANDY was young and strong, so a good night’s rest and a little attention from the Millsby doctor soon put his arm sufficiently right to permit of his going about as usual. A few...

WHEN you live in a large community you feel it possible to give an enemy a private black eye and that there the matter ends—nobody’s business but yours and his—and it is only wh...

AS Andy passed through his own hall between his own umbrella-stand and eight-day clock on his way to pay a parochial call, he stepped lightly, less like the proud incumbent of a...

IT was the day before Elizabeth’s wedding. For three days a gale of wind had been tearing across the country, shrieking through empty houses, rattling loose doors, beating with...

THIS was no comedy to those most concerned, of course, for comedy is like happiness—directly a person knows he is in it, he is out of it. Tragedy, on the other hand, can only to...

ANDY leaned over the gate while the throb of the motor grew fainter—ceased—and the dew fell quietly upon the grassy edge of the lane. Already lights shone from the upper windows...

ANDY sat in his study, endeavouring to prepare a Sunday-morning sermon that should justify the high opinion of his preaching which had led Mr. Stamford to present him to the liv...

“I ordered boilers, so they’ll have to be,” said Mrs. Jebb, with the air of a person rather at the end of her tether. “We agreed that with white sauce and grated egg and lemon s...

IF Andy had been a woman, gall would have been added to his sorrow by the sympathetic package of sandwiches which Mrs. Jebb put into the pony-cart, and by the carelessly careful...

ANDY did not feel inclined to go to bed when he got home, and so had a bath and went to work in the garden. He was not what you would call a sentimental gardener, and only weede...

MRS. STAMFORD, the wife of the Squire of the parish, stood before the mantelpiece awaiting the arrival of the new Vicar. She was a tall, spare woman, and her garments always see...

ANY one who has ever gone home after a great shock, hurrying along, and keeping the tearing thoughts of it at bay until a place is reached where they can be fought alone, will k...

REAL jollity is as antiseptic as sunshine, and when Andy sat in a leather chair opposite Mr. Thorpe, with Mrs. Thorpe presiding over an immense batch of the first mince-pies whi...

ANY gentleman who begins a sentence by saying “Elizabeth”—in the tone which Andy used near the mustard-field at Marshaven, is bound, if he be a man of honour, to complete that s...

THE year was just at that most pleasant pause between hay-time and harvest, and the Vicarage brooded in the sun amongst the full-leaved trees like an architectural embodiment of...

AFTER the dull day and the storm a bright sun broke through the clouds and slanted in long mellow rays across the wet country. Every flower and herb gave out scent, and there wa...

FROST came in the night and the next morning was fine and glorious; the aromatic scent of autumn mingled with that of a brushwood fire in Mrs. Simpson’s garden, and the smoke of...

“Something about a sideboard,” said Mrs. Jebb, poised, as it were, upon one hand at the table corner. “Three times before breakfast about a sideboard! You really must make a sta...