Gibbous House 13

Putting the papers away, I stared at the moving landscape, watching Huntingdonshire become Lincolnshire, and later Nottinghamshire, to the accompaniment of no discernable change.

By the fading light I calculated the hour to be seven or eight in the evening. The coachman was struggling to persuade the horses that the White Swan was indeed our destination. The inn had stood for some 60 years in the Northgate in Newark-on-Trent. We remaining passengers and the driver were to be lodged for the night here. The building itself showed evidence of better upkeep than that which the coaching inns were accustomed to endure at that time. The whitewash was recent and the signs freshly painted. There can be no doubt that this was entirely due to the inn’s proximity to the station of the Great Northern Railway. Indeed, there was some discussion concerning our accommodations with the landlord. It seemed there were but two rooms available for the coach, the others being let to those passengers recently arrived under locomotive power. No doubt those rich enough to travel the railway were happy to pay a premium for their lodging. By happy coincidence, the coachman preferred to stay at a house kept by a widow near the Market Square, no doubt it was respectable enough. Naturally, Caister and Pollock, their détente yet pertaining -despite the rigours of the journey - were only too pleased to share a room. I made loud noise of my dissatisfaction at having to share, even with a clergyman, and secretly blessed the saving of a shilling.

All four wayfarers dined at common table and on simple fare. The Reverend showed an appetite for port which his nose and cheeks betokened. The men of trade drank little, and I contented myself with a penny gin. The conversation was dull; cotton, slaves and - incredibly -the Taiping Rebellion in far off China – although I suspect the merchants were less interested in its effects on missionary work than the price of china tea. Making my excuses, I repaired to the room I was to share, hoping to gain advantage over the clergyman in the matter of sleeping arrangements.

The bed was large enough to accommodate two men of middling size, which description might have fit both the Reverend and myself - were one not too specific in defining ‘middling’ . I moved the bolster to the centre of the bed, and betook myself to that side of the it furthermost from the draughts occasioned by the window. Sleep came swift enough – and departed swifter. Reverend Parminter fell cacophonously into the room as if pitched in to a gaol cell by an angry turnkey. He was singing: in a prodigious, if inexpert, voice; meandering between keys as if determined to visit them all in the course of one hymn. It was not a pastoral exhortation to the contemplation of God; Parminter was bellowing ‘Soldiers of Christ, arise’ as if leading militant missionaries to convert the Chinee at the toe of their boot and the knuckle of their fist. What Charles Wesley would have made of his rendition, I did not know. Mercifully the hymn was one without refrain or chorus, and I hoped the flatness of the note attached to ‘more’ was the end of my trials for the night. It was not to be. As befit a man of the cloth, Parminter prepared himself to say his prayers. He made several abortive attempts at genuflection, before sliding to the floor and sitting, cross-legged, in passable imitation of a hindu swami. He passed an entertaining hour in listing his many failings, a good few of which had arisen due to his efforts to save women of easy virtue, a prominent figure among whom was one who may, or may not, have borne the name Lascelles. He fell asleep where he sat and I profited myself from some hours sleep, thanks to the blessed peace his prayers had brought him.