TWO NIGHTS AT ST. CYRAN'S RECTORY:

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIV, Issue 40, 28 January 1887, Page 3

TWO NIGHTS AT ST. CYRAN'S RECTORY:

(From Merry England.)

In the early winter of 1880, 1 had an appointment to go to a conference of social, political, and ecclesiastical subjects, at what I will call Nutleigh St. Cyran's Rectory, in one of the most westerly counties. Some of the subjects to be discussed were of pressing interest, and those who had been summoned from various parts of England were the nominated deputies of many other parsons and laymen, all of whom were deeply interested in the results of our interesting and formal confabulations. Much wind and many words were the personal contributions of all the talkative and agreeable members.

To the host who was to receive me I was a perfect stranger, and well acquainted with only one of those who were expected to attend. The conference was to last three days.

I had been unable to attend on the first day, but on the second I had been up betimes, and started by train on the Great Western Railway nearly nearly two hours before daybreak. Having to catch tbe train of another branch railway abont noon, I was much disappointed when the London train, by which I had journeyed, missed it. The snow was deep.

I thus found myself at a somewhat obscure station, where I was compelled to wait until the afternoon ; and when at last I had finished a tedious railway journey, I still was more than six miles from my appointed destination. Securing a fly from the adjoining railway inn, where I partook of exceedingly hard biscuits and a glass of cider, I was driven six miles along by-roads and country lanes upon which the snow lay thick. Tbe hoar frost, glittering and fantastical in shape, clustered on trees and hung upon hedges, while tbe rich crimson and purple sunshine, flushing the western slopes of a snow-bound lovely country, gave place to a wintry and leaden gloom, the shadows steadily deepen* ing upon the horizon before I had reached my much-desired destination.

Close to the Rectory gates stood a picturesque lodge (inhabited by the parish clerk), past which the vehicle was lumbering ly driven; and I was soon welcomed by my host.

It was, as I saw at a glance, a handsome and venerable building, and, as I subsequently learned, had been exchanged under the Bishop's authority, nearly seventy years ago, by the then rector, for the old rectory house, a building which stood almost inconveniently close to St. Cyran's Court, the new and magnificent residence of the St. Cyrans, which had been then jußt erected.

The rectory was a long, low, gabled house, with mullioned windows, forming three unequal and irregular sides of a square, of which the whole of the chief side was taken up by a large oak-panelled hall, reaching from floor to ceiling. There was a huge fireplace on one side, in which, so late as tbe year 1880, long logs of wood and big wedges of coal burned on old-fashioned dog-irons. On either side of the chimney were deep recesses, stone sedilia with oaken seats, covered with plush, while the chimney itself was at once broad and vasty. A heavy curtain hung before the iron-bound door of the outer porch. Two large screens— one of gilded Japenese work, the other covered with crimson plush — protected the place from winter winds and ordinary draughts at either end. Antlers of stags, which, three centuries ago, had fallen before the crossbows of the St. Cyrans, were ranged around ; and there were a few old portraits on the walls here and there. Down the centre of the hall stood a large and massive oak table, covered with green baize, books, papers, writing materials, round which Bat the members of the conference, presided over by the rector.

I was greeted by my host with cordiality, and, theugh late, welcomed to the gathering. We sat talking over the appointed problems for discussion at the conference until a stately standing clock in one of the corners, with an eccentric musical warning of what was about to happen, struck the hour of 6.

We rose, and, in preparation for dinner an hour later — to which, to write the truth, I was looking forward with pardonable interest after a loDg lunchless journey — I was shown to my bedroom. The hostess, a pleasant and intelligent woman, apologised for putting me into a room which had long been unused. But the house was very full, and some of her guests, she added, were being accommodated with sleeping rooms in tbe village — one at a yeoman-farmer's, two at the Court, and one at the village doctor's.

It was a large and low apartment at the extreme end of the house's northern wing, reached by a long narrow passage, where the bedroom door, at tbe top of a set ef six or seven steps, was of unusual thickness and antiquity. This door was protected by several largeheaded nails, and, as I at once noticed, for I own archaeological tastes, by three cumbersome but artistic hinges, which, in the shape of floriated fleur-de-lys in iron, were spread all over it. There was no handle to the door, but a stout ring and clinking latch.

I thought to myself, as I entered it with my bed candle, " Well, it certainly is a lonely, queer kind of place."

The room looked larger than it really was, because it was so low. All round, it was panelled in dark oak. The roof was of oak in heavy squares, which I noticed had been originally picked out in vermillion, green, and yellow, but the colours had faded. The

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