Witching Hill by E.W. Hornung

The Reverend Charles Brabazon, magnetic Vicar of the adjacent Village, had as strong a personality as one could wish to encounter in real life. He did what he liked with a congregation largely composed of the motley worldlings of Witching Hill. Small solicitors and west-end tradesmen, bank officials, outside brokers, first-class clerks in Government offices, they had not a Sunday soul to call their own, these hard-headed holders of season tickets to Waterloo.

Throughout the summer they flocked to church when their hearts were on the river; in the depths of winter they got up for early celebration on the one morning when they might have lain abed. Their most obsequious devotions did not temper the preacher's truculence, any more than his strongest onslaught discouraged their good works. They gave of their substance at his every call, and were even more lavish on their own initiative. Thus, in my second summer at Witching Hill, the Vicarage was practically rebuilt out of the pockets of parishioners; and we had no difficulty in providing a furnished substitute on the favourite woodland side of Mulcaster Park.