Free To the Ends of the Earth by William Golding Page A

if you was to conduct a service, a short service in the passenger saloon at seven bells in the afternoon watch or, if you prefer to remain a landsman, at half-past three o’clock.”
    He grew in stature before my eyes! His own filled with tears.
    “Mr Talbot, sir, this is—is—it is like you!”
    My irritation increased. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him how the devil he knew what I was like. I nodded and walked away, to hear behind my back some mumbled remark about visiting the sick . Good God, thought I—if he tries that, he will go off with a flea in his ear! However, I managed to get to the passenger saloon, for irritation is in part a cure for weakness in the limbs, and found Summers there. I told him what I had arranged and he greeted the information with silence. Only when I suggested that he should invite the captain to attend did he smile wryly and reply that he should have to inform the captain anyway. He would make bold to suggest a later hour. I told him the hour was a matter of indifference to me and returned to my hutch and canvas chair in which I sat and felt myself exhausted but recovered . Later in the morning, Summers came to me and said that he had altered my message somewhat and hoped I did not mind. He had made it a general request from thepassengers! He hastened to add that this was more comfortable to the customs of the sea service. Well. Someone who delights as I do in the strange but wholly expressive Tarpaulin language (I hope to produce some prize specimens for you) could not willingly allow the customs of the sea service to suffer. But when I heard that the little parson was to be allowed to address us I must own I began to regret my impulsive interference and understood how much I had enjoyed these few weeks of freedom from the whole paraphernalia of Established Religion!
    However, in decency I could not back down now and I attended the service our little cleric was allowed to perform . I was disgusted by it. Just previous to the service I saw Miss Brocklebank and her face was fairly plastered with red and white! The Magdalene must have looked just so, it may be leaning against the outer wall of the temple precincts. Nor, I thought, was Colley one to bring her to a more decorous appearance. Yet later I found I had underestimated both her judgement and her experience. For when it was time for the service the candles of the saloon irradiated her face, took from it the damaging years, while what had been paint now appeared a magical youth and beauty! She looked at me. Scarcely had I recovered from the shock of having this battery play on me when I discovered what further improvement Mr Summers had made on my original proposal. He had allowed in, to share our devotions with us, a number of the more respectable emigrants —Grant, the farrier, Filton and Whitlock, who are clerks, I think, and old Mr Grainger with his old wife. He is a scrivener. Of course any village church will exhibit just such a mixture of the orders; but here the society of the passenger saloon is so pinchbeck —such a shoddy example to them! I was recovering from this invasion when there entered to us—we standing in respect—five feet nothing of parson complete with surplice, cap of maintenanceperched on a round wig, long gown, boots with iron-shod heels—together with a mingled air of diffidence, piety, triumph and complacency. Your lordship will protest at once that some of these attributes cannot be got together under the same cap. I would agree that in the normal face there is seldom room for them all and that one in particular generally has the mastery. It is so in most cases. When we smile, do we not do so with mouth and cheeks and eyes, indeed, with the whole face from chin to hairline! But this Colley has been dealt with by Nature with the utmost economy. Nature has pitched—no, the verb is too active. Well then, on some corner of Time’s beach, or on the muddy rim of one of her more insignificant