But a more frequent guest at the Hall and at the covert-side was the Willey Rector, the Rev. Michael Pye Stephens, whose family was related to that of the Welds, through the Slaneys. The Rector was therefore, as already shown, on familiar terms with the Squire, and the more so as he was able to tell a good tale and sing a good song. The rural clergy a century ago were great acquisitions at the tables of country squires, and were not unfrequently among the most enthusiastic lovers of the chase. It was by no means an uncommon thing, forty years ago, to see the horse of the late Rector of Stockton, brother to the Squire of Apley, waiting for him at the church door at Bonnigale, which living he also held, that he might start immediately service was over for Melton Mowbray. His clerk, too, old Littlehales, who to more secular professions added that of village tailor, has often told how his master, being sorely in need of a pair of hunting breeches for Melton, undertook to close the church one Sunday in order to give him the opportunity of making them, with the remark, “Oh, d—n the church, you stop at home and make the breeches.” But the Rector of Willey was by no means so enthusiastic as a sportsman. He was not the
“Clerical fop, half jockey and half clerk, The tandem-driving Tommy of a town, Disclaiming book, omniscient of a horse, Impatient till September comes again, Eloquent only of the pretty girl With whom he danced last night!”
Neither did he resemble those more bilious members of the profession of modern times—
“Who spit their puny spite on harmless recreation.”
On the contrary, he held what it may be difficult to gainsay, that amusements calculated to strengthen the frame and to improve the health, if fitting for a gentleman, were not unfitting for a clergyman. His presence, at any rate, was welcomed by neighbouring squires in the field, as “Hark in! Hark in! Hark! Yoi over boys!” sounded merrily on the morning air; and as he sat mounted on the Squire’s thorough-bred it would have been difficult to have detected anything of the divine; the clerico-waistcoat and black single-breasted outer garment having given place to more fitting garb. Fond of field sports himself, he willingly associated with his neighbours and joined in their pastimes and amusements. A man who was a frequent guest at the Hall, who received letters from the Squire when in London, and who would take a long pipe now and then between his lips, and moisten his clay from a pewter tankard round a clean-scoured table in a road-side inn, was naturally of considerable importance in his own immediate district.
