"Haggard, H Rider- When the World Shook" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haggard H. Rider)

Carolian times because my ancestors fought on the side of
Parliament.

My father was a recluse, and a widower, for my mother, a
Scotswoman, died at or shortly after my birth. Being very High
Church for those days he was not popular with the family that
owned the Priory before me. Indeed its head, a somewhat vulgar
person of the name of Enfield who had made money in trade, almost
persecuted him, as he was in a position to do, being the local
magnate and the owner of the rectorial tithes.

I mention this fact because owing to it as a boy I made up my
mind that one day I would buy that place and sit in his seat, a
wild enough idea at the time. Yet it became engrained in me, as
do such aspirations of our youth, and when the opportunity arose
in after years I carried it out. Poor old Enfield! He fell on
evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster up a favourite son who
was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an ungrateful scamp, in the end
he was practically ruined and when the bad times came, was forced
to sell the Fulcombe estate. I think of him kindly now, for after
all he was good to me and gave me many a day's shooting and leave
to fish for trout in the river.

By the poor people, however, of all the district round, for the
parish itself is very small, my father was much beloved, although
he did practise confession, wear vestments and set lighted
candles on the altar, and was even said to have openly expressed
the wish, to which however he never attained, that he could see a
censer swinging in the chancel. Indeed the church which, as monks
built it, is very large and fine, was always full on Sundays,
though many of the worshippers came from far away, some of them
doubtless out of curiosity because of its papistical repute, also
because, in a learned fashion, my father's preaching was very
good indeed.

For my part I feel that I owe much to these High-Church views.
They opened certain doors to me and taught me something of the
mysteries which lie at the back of all religions and therefore
have their home in the inspired soul of man whence religions are
born. Only the pity is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
he never discovers, never even guesses at that entombed
aspiration, never sinks a shaft down on to this secret but most
precious vein of ore.

I have said that my father was learned; but this is a mild
description, for never did I know anyone quite so learned. He was
one of those men who is so good all round that he became
preeminent-eminent in nothing. A classic of the first water, a very
respectable mathematician, an expert in theology, a student of
sundry foreign languages and literature in his lighter moments,