es, surely I had been asleep and had woken up;
but, no! alas, no! I had not been asleep--at least not in the old
church--if I had been asleep I had been walking in my sleep, struggling,
striving, learning, and unlearning in my sleep. Years had rolled away
whilst I had been asleep--ripe fruit had fallen, green fruit had come on
whilst I had been asleep--how circumstances had altered, and above all
myself, whilst I had been asleep. No, I had not been asleep in the old
church! I was in a pew it is true, but not the pew of black leather, in
which I sometimes fell asleep in days of yore, but in a strange pew; and
then my companions, they were no longer those of days of yore. I was no
longer with my respectable father and mother, and my dear brother, but
with the gypsy cral {277} and his wife, and the gigantic Tawno, the
Antinous of the dusky people. And what was I myself? No longer an
innocent child, but a moody man, bearing in my face, as I knew well, the
marks of my strivings and strugglings, of what I had learned and
unlearned; nevertheless, the general aspect of things brought to my mind
what I had felt and seen of yore. There was difference enough it is
true, but still there was a similarity--at least I thought so,--the
church, the clergyman, and the clerk differing in many respects from
those of pretty D . . ., put me strangely in mind of them; and then the
words!--by-the-bye, was it not the magic of the words which brought the
dear enchanting past so powerfully before the mind of Lavengro? for the
words were the same sonorous words of high import which had first made an
impression on his childish ear in the old church of pretty Dereham.

The liturgy was now over, during the reading of which my companions
behaved in a most unexceptional manner, sitting down and rising up when
other people sat down and rose, and holding in their hands prayer-books
which they found in the pew, into which they stared intently, though I
observed that, with the exception of Mrs. Petulengro, who knew how to
read a little, they held the books by the top, and not the bottom, as is
the usual way. The clergyman now ascended the pulpit, arrayed in his
black gown. The congregation composed themselves to attention, as did
also my companions, who fixed their eyes upon the clergyman with a
certain strange immovable stare, which I believe to be peculiar to their
race. The clergyman gave out his text, and began to preach. He was a
tall, gent