e answer was "at
half-past two, sir, or at three, or else no time at all," by which was
meant no exact hour or half-hour. This uncertainty led to the bells
never being rung till the minister was seen turning the corner of Kiln-
lane, just where the large boulder stone used to be. The congregation
was, however, collecting, almost all the men in white smocks with
beautifully worked breasts and backs, the more well-to-do in velveteen;
the women in huge bonnets. The elder ones wore black silk or satin
bonnets, with high crowns and big fronts, the younger ones, straw with
ribbon crossed over, always with a bonnet cap under. A red cloak was the
regular old women's dress, or a black or blue one, and sometimes a square
shawl, folded so as to make a triangle, over a gown of stuff in winter,
print in summer. A blue printed cotton with white or yellow sprays was
the regular week day dress, and the poorest wore it on Sundays. The
little girls in the aisle had the like big coarse straw bonnets, with a
strip of glazed calico hemmed and crossed over for strings, round
tippets, and straight print frocks down to their feet. The boys were in
small smocks, of either white or green canvas, with fustian or corduroy
jackets or trowsers below, never cloth. Gloves and pocket handkerchiefs
were hardly known among the children, hardly an umbrella, far less
parasols or muffs. Ladies had pelisses for out-of-door wear, fitting
close like ulsters, but made of dark green or purple silk or merino, and
white worked dresses under them in summer.

Well, the congregation got into Church--three families by the step ladder
to one gallery, and the men into another, where the front row squeezed
their knees through the rails and leant on the top bar, the rest of the
world in the pews, and the children on benches. The clerk was in his
desk behind the reading desk--good George Oxford, with his calm, good,
gentle face, and tall figure, sadly lame from rheumatism caught when
working in the brick kilns. His voice was always heard above the others
in the responses, but our congregation never had dropped the habit of
responding, and, though there was no chanting, the Amens and some of the
Versicles used to have a grand full musical sound peculiar to that
Church. People also all turned to the east for the Creed, few knelt, but
some of the elder men stood during the prayers, and, though there was far
too much _sitting down_ during the singing, every body got