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Updated: September 11, 2025
Pierson had stayed in the vestry, talking with his choir and wardens; there was no hitch, for his resignation had been accepted, and he had arranged with a friend to carry on till the new Vicar was appointed. When they were gone he went back into the empty Church, and mounted to the organ-loft.
The head charity-boy blows the bellows; the master canes the other boys in the organ-loft; the clerk sings out Amen from the desk; and the beadle with the staff opens the door for his Reverence, who rustles in silk up to the cushion.
The design of the whole seems to have been very poor: "the miserable organ gallery" is what Hewett calls it. The original stone screen that formed the entrance to the choir before the tower fell, situated in the bay of the nave next to the octagon, was still standing. It had served as the organ-loft until the alteration.
I open the door of a family pew, and shut myself in; if I could occupy twenty family pews at once I might have them. Organ-loft is in a small gallery across the church; gallery congregation, two girls. I wonder within myself what will happen when we are required to sing.
The head charity-boy blows the bellows; the master canes the other boys in the organ-loft; the clerk sings out Amen from the desk; and the beadle with the staff opens the door for his Reverence, who rustles in silk up to the cushion.
At first words were not said; but looks were looked, and coughs were coughed. Then someone, strolling into the church of a morning while Carl Ullman was practising, saw Miss Ebag sitting in silent ecstasy in a corner. And a few mornings later the same someone, whose curiosity had been excited, veritably saw Mrs Ebag in the organ-loft with Carl Ullman, but no sign of Miss Ebag.
Why, I asked of Sherrick, should those ladies who sing Mozart to a piano, not sing Handel to an organ? "'Dash it, you don't mean a hurdy-gurdy?" "'Sherrick, says I, 'you are no better than a heathen ignoramus. I mean why shouldn't they sing Handes Church Music, and Church Music in general in Lady Whittlesea's Chapel? Behind the screen up in the organ-loft what's to prevent 'em? By Jingo!
And then he thought of the crack above the south transept arch that he had seen from the organ-loft, and remembered how "Sharnall in D flat" had been interrupted by the discovery. Why, Mr Sharnall might be in the church; perhaps he had gone down to practise and been shut in. Perhaps his key had broken, and he could not get out; he wondered that he had not thought of the church before.
Then he went down into the church, and up again into the organ-loft, whence he could see the wide bow of that late Norman arch which spanned the south transept. Above the arch ran up into the lantern the old fissure, zigzag like a baleful lightning-flash, that had given him so much anxiety. The day was overcast, and heavy masses of cloud drifting across the sky darkened the church.
"As for what relates to the church, he is of opinion that these epilogues have given occasion to those merry jigs from the organ-loft, which have dissipated those good thoughts and dispositions he has found in himself, and the rest of the pew, upon the singing of two staves culled out by the judicious and diligent clerk.
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