Excerpt from Back O' the Moon: And Other Stories

The first thing that the new person noticed, as he rode up the narrow, precipitous street late in the October afternoon was that the mumed knock knocking that proceeded from' the houses ceased as he ascended; and the next was that he had never in his life seen so many mongrel dogs as prowled and sniffed at his heels. He had left his grey galloway in Horwick T own, three miles back he now saw the reason why they had laughed and advised him that he might as well sell it there and then. Wadsworth Shelf had been steep; Wadsworth Street was precipitous; and at the head of the street rose Wadsworth Scout, dark and mountainous. The Scout was thinly wooded here and there with birch and mountain-ash. It over shadowed the village beneath it; and as the person reached the small square at its foot he saw, over an irregular row of roots, the squat belfry of the little Church that was now his charge. A ram shackle inn, with a long horse-trough in front of it, occupied the lower side of the square.

As the knock-knocking ceased entirely, the parson became conscious that men and women had come softly out into the street behind him, and he knew without looking that behind every blind and shutter there was a pair of eyes. A raw-boned fellow lounged against the horse-trough of the inn, and he had taken off one of his woodasoled Clogs and was peering into it as if for a stone. The parson had been warned that few in his new cure were known by their baptismal names, and had been told the name by which he must seek his own verger and bellringer. Approaching the fellow with the dog, he asked where he should find one Pim o' Cuddy. The fellow jerked his head in the direction of the Church under the dark Scout, and continued to peer into the Clog. The dogs trailed after the person as he crossed the square.

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