Wherever I had gone with him I had noticed that he was received with
good-humoured deference by his rough parishioners and others who were
such only in the broadest sense. Perhaps he would not have succeeded so
well if he had worn clerical clothes. As it was, of a week day, he could
not be distinguished from any respectable layman. The clerical uniform
attracts women more than men, who, if they spoke truly, would resent it.
Roscoe did not wear it, because he thought more of men than of function,
of manliness than clothes; and though this sometimes got him into trouble
with his clerical brethren who dearly love Roman collar, and coloured
stole, and the range of ritual from a lofty intoning to the eastward
position, he managed to live and himself be none the worse, while those
who knew him were certainly the better.
When Roscoe had finished his tale, Mrs. Falchion said: "Mr. Boldrick must
be a very interesting man;" and her eyes wandered up to the great hole in
the mountain-side, and lingered there. "As I said, I must meet him," she
added; "men of individuality are rare." Then: "That great 'hole in the
wall' is, of course, a natural formation.
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