The pulpit and desk,
grey and old as the pews, stood on one side of the arch leading into
the chancel, which also had its grey square pews for Mr. Donnithorne's
family and servants. Yet I assure you these grey pews, with the
buff-washed walls, gave a very pleasing tone to this shabby interior,
and agreed extremely well with the ruddy faces and bright waistcoats.
And there were liberal touches of crimson toward the chancel, for
the pulpit and Mr. Donnithorne's own pew had handsome crimson cloth
cushions; and, to close the vista, there was a crimson altar-cloth,
embroidered with golden rays by Miss Lydia's own hand.
But even without the crimson cloth, the effect must have been warm and
cheering when Mr. Irwine was in the desk, looking benignly round on
that simple congregation--on the hardy old men, with bent knees and
shoulders, perhaps, but with vigour left for much hedge-clipping and
thatching; on the tall stalwart frames and roughly cut bronzed faces of
the stone-cutters and carpenters; on the half-dozen well-to-do farmers,
with their apple-cheeked families; and on the clean old women, mostly
farm-labourers' wives, with their bit of snow-white cap-border under
their black bonnets, and with their withered arms, bare from the elbow,
folded passively over their chests.
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