No Saint Author:Adeline Sergeant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE CLERICAL VIEW. " A good man was ther of religioun." Chaucer. PAUL'S case was meanwhile under discussion. " Very sa4 thing, all th... more »is about young Hern- shaw ! " said the Reverend Stephen Furnival, in a brisk and cheerful manner which somewhat belied the tenor of his words. Mr. Furnival was the vicar of Saxby, a village about three miles distant from the town of Glandford. He was a little man, who generally stood on tiptoe when addressing strangers, or balanced himself on toe and heel alternately. His closely-shaven, sharp- featured face was tanned by exposure to the weather during hours devoted to his favorite amusement of angling; his quick gray eyes were noticeable for a twinkle which displayed a readiness to enjoy the humorous aspects of life as much as he had enjoyed them at Baliol thirty years before his hair turned from black to iron-gray. Mr. Furnival's readiness to see a joke (and also to make one), was not always approved by his soberer clerical friends. His jokes were too often at their expense ; they were not merely the ordinary parson's witticism, pointed with a classical quotation, or flavored with that spice of mild profanity generally dear to the clerical soul. Mr. Furnival abjured the classics in conversation, although he had in his time amalgamated a very fair amount of Greek and Latin ; he also avoided profane stories, how witty soever they might be, partly because he was a strict churchman, and partly because (like many other men who love their joke), he was utterly blind and deaf to the merriest jest that did not emanate from himself. His own jokes were blunt and obvious, and he laughed at them without reserve, being quite unconscious that his friends sometimes winced under his raillery. The friends revenged themselves mildly 4)...« less