Grewgious.'
Miss Twinkleton here achieved a curtsey, suggestive of marvels
happening to her respected legs, and which she came out of nobly,
three yards behind her starting-point.
As he held it incumbent upon him to call on Mr. Jasper before
leaving Cloisterham, Mr. Grewgious went to the gatehouse, and
climbed its postern stair. But Mr. Jasper's door being closed, and
presenting on a slip of paper the word 'Cathedral,' the fact of its
being service-time was borne into the mind of Mr. Grewgious. So he
descended the stair again, and, crossing the Close, paused at the
great western folding-door of the Cathedral, which stood open on
the fine and bright, though short-lived, afternoon, for the airing
of the place.
'Dear me,' said Mr. Grewgious, peeping in, 'it's like looking down
the throat of Old Time.'
Old Time heaved a mouldy sigh from tomb and arch and vault; and
gloomy shadows began to deepen in corners; and damps began to rise
from green patches of stone; and jewels, cast upon the pavement of
the nave from stained glass by the declining sun, began to perish.
Within the grill-gate of the chancel, up the steps surmounted
loomingly by the fast-darkening organ, white robes could be dimly
seen, and one feeble voice, rising and falling in a cracked,
monotonous mutter, could at intervals be faintly heard. In the
free outer air, the river, the green pastures, and the brown arable
lands, the teeming hills and dales, were reddened by the sunset:
while the distant little windows in windmills and farm homesteads,
shone, patches of bright beaten gold.
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