ked beyond the screens, gleamed rich windows,
with figures and armorial bearings; here and there tattered banners hung
on the walls; St. Christopher stood on the north wall opposite the door,
to guard from violence all who looked upon him day by day; a little
painting of the Baptist hung on a pillar over against the font, and a
Vernacle by the pulpit; and all round the walls hung little pictures,
that the poor and unlearned might read the story of redemption there. But
the chief glory of all was the solemn high altar, with its riddells
surmounted by taper-bearing gilded angels, with its brocade cloth, and
its painted halpas behind; and above it, before the rich window which
smouldered against the dawn, hung the awful pyx, covered by the white
silk cloth, but empty; waiting for the priest to come and bid the
Shechinah of the Lord to brood there again over this gorgeous throne
beneath, against the brilliant halo of the painted glass behind.

Anthony knelt a moment and thanked God for bringing him here, and then
passed up into the north aisle, where the image of the Mother of God
presided, as she had done for three hundred years, over her little altar
against the wall. Anthony said his preparation and vested at the altar;
and was astonished to find at least thirty people to hear mass: none, of
course, made their communion, but Anthony, when he had ended, placed the
Body of the Lord once more in the hanging pyx and lit the lamp before it.

Then all day he sat in the north chapel, with the dash and loud thunder
of the mountain stream entering through the opened panes of the east
window, and the stained sunlight, in gorgeous colours, creeping across
the red tiles at his feet, glowing and fading as the clouds moved over
the sun, while the people came and were shriven; with the exception of an
hour in the middle of the day and half an hour for supper in the evening,
he was incessantly occupied until nine o'clock at night. From the upland
dales all round they streamed in, at news of the priest, and those who
had come from far and were fasting he communicated at once from the
Reserved Sacrament. At last, tired out, but intensely happy, he went back
to the Hall.

But the next morning was yet more startling. Mass was at eight o'clock,
and by the time Anthony entered the church he found a congregation of
nearly two hundred souls; the village itself did not number above
seventy, but many came in from the country round, and some had