CHAPTER VI.

S. PHILIP AND S. JAMES--THE MONKEY-BARGE AND THE DOG--WAR, PLAGUE, AND
FIRE--THE DULNESS OF EVERYDAY LIFE.


There were two churches in our town. Not that the town was so very
large or the churches so very small as to make this needful. On the
contrary, the town was of modest size, with no traces of having ever
been much bigger, and the churches were very large and very handsome.
That is, they were fine outside, and might have been very imposing
within but for the painted galleries which blocked up the arches above
and the tall pews which dwarfed the majestic rows of pillars below.
They were not more than a quarter of a mile apart. One was dedicated
to S. Philip and the other to S. James, and they were commonly called
"the brother churches." In the tower of each hung a peal of eight
bells.

One clergyman served both the brother churches, and the services were
at S. Philip one week and at S. James the next. We were so accustomed
to this that it never struck us as odd. What did seem odd, and perhaps
a little dull, was that people in other places should have to go to
the same church week after week.

There was only one day in the year on which both the peals of bells
were heard, the Feast of SS. Philip and James, which is also May Day.
Then there was morning prayer at S. Philip and evening prayer at S.
James, and the bells rang changes and cannons, and went on ringing by
turns all the evening, the bell-ringers being escorted from one church
to another with May garlands and a sort of triumphal procession. The