t state pew which the family occupied,
and here after due time they all took their places in order, whilst a
rather numerous congregation from the village filled the seats below. A
few ancient dusty banners hung from the church roof; and Harry pleased
himself in imagining that they had been borne by retainers of his family
in the Commonwealth wars, in which, as he knew well, his ancestors had
taken a loyal and distinguished part. Within the altar-rails was the
effigy of the Esmond of the time of King James the First, the common
forefather of all the group assembled in the family pew. Madame de
Bernstein, in her quality of Bishop's widow, never failed in attendance,
and conducted her devotions with a gravity almost as exemplary as that
of the ancestor yonder, in his square beard and red gown, for ever
kneeling on his stone hassock before his great marble desk and
book, under his emblazoned shield of arms. The clergyman, a tall,
high-coloured, handsome young man, read the service in a lively,
agreeable voice, giving almost a dramatic point to the chapters of
Scripture which he read. The music was good--one of the young ladies
of the family touching the organ--and would have been better but for an
interruption and something like a burst of laughter from the servants'
pew, which was occasioned by Mr. Warrington's lacquey Gumbo, who,
knowing the air given out for the psalm, began to sing it in a voice so
exceedingly loud and sweet, that the whole congregation turned towards
the African warbler; the parson himself put his handkerchief to his
mouth, and the liveried gentlemen from London were astonished out of all
propriety. Pleased, perhaps, with the sensation which he had created,
Mr. Gumbo continued his performance until it became almost a solo, and
the voice of the clerk himself was silenced. For the truth is, that
though Gumbo held on to the book, along with pretty Molly, the porter's
daughter, who had been the first to welcome the strangers to Castlewood,
he sang and recited by ear and not by note, and could not read a
syllable of the verses in the book before him.

This choral performance over, a brief sermon in due course followed,
which, indeed, Harry thought a deal too short. In a lively, familiar,
striking discourse the clergyman described a scene of which he had
been witness the previous week--the execution of a horse-stealer after
Assizes. He described the man and his previous good character, his
family, the love