There were no modern painted windows,
flaring with raw colors, nor other gorgeous adornments, such as the
present taste for medieval restoration often patches upon the decorous
simplicity of the gray village-church. It is probably the
worshipping-place of no more distinguished a congregation than the
farmers and peasantry who inhabit the houses and cottages which I have
just described. Had the lord of the manor been one of the parishioners,
there would have been an eminent pew near the chancel, walled high
about, curtained, and softly cushioned, warmed by a fireplace of its
own, and distinguished by hereditary tablets and escutcheons on the
inclosed stone pillar.
A well-trodden path led across the church-yard, and the gate being on
the latch, we entered, and walked round among the graves and monuments.
The latter were chiefly head-stones, none of which were very old, so far
as was discoverable by the dates; some, indeed, in so ancient a
cemetery, were disagreeably new, with inscriptions glittering like
sunshine, in gold letters. The ground must have been dug over and over
again, innumerable times, until the soil is made up of what was once
human clay, out of which have sprung successive crops of gravestones,
that flourish their allotted time, and disappear, like the weeds and
flowers in their briefer period.
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