Page 27 - of-human-bondage-

VI

O ne day was very like another at the vicarage.
Soon after breakfast Mary Ann brought in The
Times. Mr. Carey shared it with two neighbours. He had it
from ten till one, when the gardener took it over to Mr. Ellis
at the Limes, with whom it remained till seven; then it was
taken to Miss Brooks at the Manor House, who, since she
got it late, had the advantage of keeping it. In summer Mrs.
Carey, when she was making jam, often asked her for a copy
to cover the pots with. When the Vicar settled down to his
paper his wife put on her bonnet and went out to do the
shopping. Philip accompanied her. Blackstable was a fish-
ing village. It consisted of a high street in which were the
shops, the bank, the doctor’s house, and the houses of two
or three coalship owners; round the little harbor were shab-
by streets in which lived fishermen and poor people; but
since they went to chapel they were of no account. When
Mrs. Carey passed the dissenting ministers in the street she
stepped over to the other side to avoid meeting them, but if
there was not time for this fixed her eyes on the pavement.
It was a scandal to which the Vicar had never resigned
himself that there were three chapels in the High Street:
he could not help feeling that the law should have stepped
in to prevent their erection. Shopping in Blackstable was
not a simple matter; for dissent, helped by the fact that the

Of Human Bondage