Later, when their peerage
was conferred, they lost a little of their yeoman simplicity, and became
peruked and robed and breeched; one, indeed, in the age of George III.,
who was blessed with poetical aspirations, appeared in bare feet and a
Roman toga with a scroll of manuscript in his hand; while later again,
mere tablets on the walls commemorated their almost uncanny virtues.
And just on the other side of the grille, but a step away, sat the
present-day representatives of the line, while Lady Ashbridge finished
the last bars of her voluntary, Lord Ashbridge himself and his sister,
large and smart and comely, and Michael beside them, short and heavy,
with his soul full of the aspirations his father neither could nor cared
to understand. According to his invariable custom, Lord Ashbridge read
the lessons in a loud, sonorous voice, his large, white hands grasping
the wing-feathers of the brass eagle, and a great carnation in his
buttonhole; and when the time came for the offertory he put a sovereign
in the open plate himself, and proceeded with his minuet-like step to go
round the church and collect the gifts of the encouraged congregation.
He followed all the prayers in his book, he made the responses in a
voice nearly as loud as that in which he read the lessons; he sang the
hymns with a curious buzzing sound, and never for a moment did he lose
sight of the fact that he was the head of the Comber family, doing his
duty as the custom of the Combers was, and setting an example of godly
piety.
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