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The Archdeacon prayed, the choir responded with a long Amen, and the procession filed out, the boys with faces pious and wistful, the choir-men moving with nonchalance, their restless eyes wandering over the scene so absolutely known to them.
When I first ascended the pulpit, which stood outside of a high chancel screen, I looked towards the nave, and saw it filled with high pews, which, as I thought, were for the most part empty; whereas, I could see that the choir and chancel, which was brightly lighted, was full of choir-men and boys, besides many people; so instead of turning my back upon the many in the lighted chancel, and addressing myself to the unseen few in the large dark nave, I turned round in the pulpit, and, looking through the screen, I preached to those I could see.
We mount the winding staircase of stone, and march through the long passages under the heavy roof-beams. The wind moans very strangely here, both within and without. It is hardly known how, but the people say yes, people say a great many things when they are frightened or want to frighten others they say that the old dead choir-men glide silently past us into the church, where mass is sung.
We mount the winding staircase of stone, and march through the long passages under the heavy roof-beams. The wind moans very strangely here, both within and without. It is hardly known how, but people say yes, people say a great many things when they are frightened or want to frighten others they say that the old dead choir-men glide silently past us into the church, where mass is sung.
The choir-boys fell to giggling, the choir-men stared, clerk Janaway grasped his mace as if he would brain so rash an adventurer, and the general movement made Mr Sharnall glance nervously at his stops; for he thought that he had overslept himself, and that the choir had stood up for the Magnificat. The stranger seemed unconscious of the attention which his appearance provoked.
Look at the sacristans, the beadles, the lackeys of the Bishop's palace, the hirers of chairs, the choir-men, the sellers of tapers, the tradesmen by appointment to the religious houses, the beggar who stretches out his hand to you at the door, and the man who hands you the holy-water sprinkler, have they not all the same hypocritical face, the same cunning, devoutly sanctimonious look?
If strangers troubled little about Cullerne, the interest of the inhabitants in the week-day service was still more lukewarm, and the pews in front of the canopied stalls remained constantly empty. Thus, Mr Noot read, and Mr Sharnall the organist played, and the choir-men and choristers sang, day by day, entirely for clerk Janaway's benefit, because there was no one else to listen to them.
It was, in fact, the stranger of the tenor voice, and such is the quickness of woman's wit, that she learnt in a moment as much concerning his outward appearance as the organist and the choir-men and the clerk had learnt in an hour; and more besides, for she saw that he was well dressed. There was about him a complete absence of personal adornment.
As 1915 gave place to 1916, one by one the professional choir-men got called up for military service, and finally came the turn of the organist and choirmaster himself, he being just inside the limit of age.
I do not think that the congregation had the faintest idea that half the elaborate anthems and Services they were listening to, though familiar to the boys, had never been seen by the majority of the choir-men until they came into church, and that they were being read at sight.
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