The choir were not surpliced, so he would have to go in alone; a final instruction from Aldridge dictated where he was to read the service.

"When you come to the chancel, sir, you'll see two reading-desks, one on the right hand side and one on the left. 'Twas the one on the left hand the old Rector always used, and that will be your place. We keep the other for a visiting parson when there is one, like as may be a missionary coming to preach for the Gospel in Foreign Parts collection. I think I mentioned there would be no collection today."

But when Basil marched into church, feebly accompanied by a voluntary on the wheezy old harmonium, he found the desk on the left of the chancel already occupied, so turned into the other. He felt some slight surprise, concluding he had mistaken Aldridge (who was frowning disapproval from one of the back pews at this insubordination on the part of his pupil). And, when the music ceased and he opened his book, he looked across at his vis-a-vis.

It was an elderly clergyman who was seated opposite, wearing a black skull-cap to cover his baldness, and spectacles over which a pair of very keen eyes critically regarded the younger man. He did not stand for the opening of the service, so Basil concluded he was infirm as well as aged; as old, or nearly so, as the nonogenarian priest who had officiated there for so many years. Probably he was a retired parson resident in the village, who came in to give assistance in some part of the service—a part he had not yet reached, but Aldridge ought to have told him.

He made a slight pause on arriving at the Lessons, both the first and the second, but the opposite parson did not budge; and again before the Litany, with the same absence of result. He did not rise for either of the Creeds, but was observed distinctly to frown when Basil turned to the East, which doubtless had not been Mr. Clench's practice. When it came to sermon time, however, he got up very alertly, and ascended the pulpit stairs just as Basil was approaching them. Then from that elevation he looked back at the younger priest with a distinctly malicious smile.

What was Basil to do? He could not challenge the usurper of his pulpit then and there, or drag him out in the face of the watching congregation and take his place. He went back to the reading-desk as if for a book; and then, the loudly shouted hymn having come to an end, he became aware that the man in the pulpit was not intending to preach, though he occupied the legitimate place of the preacher. There was an awkward—an extremely awkward—pause. Aldridge was fidgetting at the bottom of the church; the sparsely filled aisles displayed a vista of astonished faces. So in desperation Basil came forward to the chancel step, and from there delivered his address.

He had been in priests' orders close upon four years, and during that time had faced many congregations; the nervousness of the raw hand was no longer his, or so he flattered himself. Why should it be harder to speak to these country bumpkins than to the keener people of the towns? But on this occasion his nerve failed him, he stumbled over his words, lost the place in his notes, and recovered the thread of the argument with agonizing difficulty, while a cold perspiration broke out over him, and he turned from red to white, and then to red again. Yet, had he been cool enough to analyse his feelings, he would have discovered the disturbing element emanated from one only among his hearers, the strange old man who had mounted into the pulpit, and who now bent forward over the tasselled cushion, staring him in the face, and smiling with a sort of evil amusement and triumph.

He had intended to shorten his address, and short it was indeed, as he stumbled through it to a premature and pointless close. The blessing followed, the wheezy harmonium struck up with renewed spirit, and as he turned towards the vestry, the old man descended the pulpit stairs as if to follow him thither. But on reaching the door which Aldridge was holding open, there was no one to be seen.

Aldridge shook his head more in sorrow than in anger, as he prepared to help Basil off with his vestments.

"People here always make such a talk over any little difference. I'm afraid, sir, they won't half like you preaching to them from the floor, when they have been used to take their sermons out of the pulpit. Begging your pardon, sir, have you always been accustomed to preach so?"

"I have often done so," Basil answered. "But to-day, as you would see, I had no choice. Who was the old clergyman who sat on the left side of the chancel, and then went up into the pulpit, though he did not preach? It was impossible for me to ask him to give place."

"Old clergyman, sir? I didn't see no old clergyman. Where was he, did you say?"

"In the reading-desk when I went in, and he went up before me into the pulpit. Where do you sit in the church, that you did not see?"

"I could have seen right enough anything that was there," blurted out Aldridge, forgetful of his manners. "The pulpit was open to you the whole time, and the reading-desk as well, sure as I am here a living man. Begging your pardon, sir, for being positive." And then the clerk paled from his usually healthy colour, as a strange thought occurred to him. "Might I ask, sir, what the gentleman you saw was like?"

"An old clergyman in a surplice and a black stole. An Oxford hood he had too, for I saw the crimson silk as he went up the pulpit stairs.