“Cissy only let them have it once,” said Lady Atherley, as if making the best of it.  “And, indeed, I believe it rained so hard that day they were not able to have the meeting after all.”

Then the carriage stopped before the lych-gate, through which the fresh-faced school children were trooping; and while the bell clanged its last monotonous summons, we walked up between the village graves to the old church porch that older yews overshadow, where the village lads were loitering, as Sunday after Sunday their sleeping forefathers had loitered before them.

We worshipped that morning in a magnificent pew to one side of the chancel, and quite as large, from which we enjoyed a full view of clergy and congregation.  The former consisted of the Canon, Mr. Jackson, clergyman of the parish, and a young man I had not seen before.  Not a large number had mustered to hear the Canon; the front seats were well filled by men and women in goodly apparel, but in the pews behind and in the side aisles there was a mere sprinkling of worshippers in the Sunday dress of country labourers.  Our supplicaitions were offered with as little ritualistic pageantry as Mrs. Mostyn herself could have desired, though the choir probably sang oftener and better than she would have approved.  In spite of their efforts it was as uninspiring a service as I have ever taken part in.  This was not due, as might be suspected, to Atherley’s presence, for his demeanour was irreproachable.  His little sons, delighted at having him with them, carefully found his places for him in prayer and hymnbook, and kept watch that he did not lose them afterwards, so that he perforce assumed a really edifying degree of attention.  Nor, indeed, did the rest of the congregation err in the direction of restlessness or wandering looks, but rather in the opposite extreme, insomuch that during the litany, when we were no longer supported by music, and had, most of us, assumed attitudes favourable to repose, we appeared one and all to succumb to it, especially towards the close, when, from the body of the church at least, only the aged clerk was heard to cry for mercy.  But with the third service, there came a change, which reminded me of how once in a foreign cathedral, when the procession filed by—­the singing-men nudging each other, the standard-bearers giggling, and the English tourists craning to see the sight—­the face of one white-haired old bishop beneath his canopy transformed for me a foolish piece of mummery into a prayer in action.  So it was again, when the young stranger turned to us his pale clear-cut face, solemn with an awe as rapt as if he verily stood before the throne of Him he called upon, and felt Its glory beating on his face; then, by that one earnest and believing presence, all was transformed and redeemed; the old emblems recovered their first significance, the time-worn phrases glowed with life again, and we ourselves were altered—­our very heaviness was pathetic:  it was the lethargy of death itself, and our poor sleepy prayers the strain of manacled captives striving to be free.