And on the wall,
stopping up the southern chancel window, was a huge marble slab,
supported by angels blowing trumpets, with a very long inscription
about the Fordyce family, ending with this same Margaret, who had
married the Winslow, lost two or three infants, and died on 1st
January 1708, three years later than her husband.
Thus far I could see; but Griff was standing lifting the curtain,
and showing by the working of his shoulders his amazement and
diversion, so that only the daggers in my mother's eyes kept Martyn
from springing up after him. What he beheld was an altar draped in
black like a coffin, and on the step up to the rail, boys and girls
eating apples and performing antics to beguile the waiting time,
while a row of white-smocked old men occupied the bench opposite to
our seat, conversing loud enough for us to hear them.
My father and Clarence came in; the bells stopped; there was a sound
of steps, and in the fabric in front of us there emerged a grizzled
head and the back of a very dirty surplice besprinkled with iron
moulds, while Chapman's back appeared above our curtain, his desk
(full of dilapidated prayer-books) being wedged in between us and
the reading-desk.
The duet that then took place between him and the curate must have
been heard to be credible, especially as, being so close behind the
old man, we could not fail to be aware of all the remarkable shots
at long words which he bawled out at the top of his voice, and I
refrain from recording, lest they should haunt others as they have
done by me all my life.
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