(A SKETCH FROM THE PROVINCES.)
_The interior of Dulchester Cathedral._ TIME--_About 12.30. The March
sunshine slants in pale shafts through the clerestory windows, leaving
the aisles in shadow. From without, the cawing of rooks and shouts of
children at play are faintly audible. By the West Door, a party of
Intending Sightseers have collected, and the several groups, feeling
that it would be a waste of time to observe anything in the building
until officially instructed to do so, are engaged in eyeing one another
with all the genial antipathy and suspicion of true-born Britons._
A Stodgy Sightseer (_to his friend_). Disgraceful, keeping us standing
about like this! If I'd only known, I'd have told the head-waiter at the
"Mitre" to keep back those chops till----
[_He breaks off abruptly, finding that the chops are
reverberating from column to column with
disproportionate solemnity; a white-haired and
apple-faced verger rustles down from the choir
and beckons the party forward benignantly, whereupon they
advance with a secret satisfaction at the prospect of "getting
the cathedral 'done' and having the rest of the day to
themselves;" they are conducted to a desk and requested, as a
preliminary, to put sixpence apiece in the Restoration Fund
box and inscribe their names in a book._
_Confused Murmurs._ Would you put "Portico Lodge, Camden Road, or only
London?"... Here, I'd better sign for the lot of you, eh?... They
_might_ provide a better pen--in a _cathedral_, I _do_ think!... He
might have given all our names in full instead of just "And party!"...
Oh, I've been and made a blot--will it _matter_, should you think?... I
never _can_ write my name with people looking on, can _you_?... I'm sure
you've done it beautifully, dear!... Just hold my umbrella while I take
off my glove, Maria.... Oh, why _don't_ they make haste? &c., &c.
[_The_ STODGY SIGHTSEER _fumes, feeling that, while they are
fiddling, his chops are burning._
The VERGER. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will please to follow me,
the portion of the building where we now are is part of the original
hedifice founded by Ealfrytha, wife of Earl Baldric, in the year height
'undred heighty-height, though we 'ave reason to believe that an even
hearlier church was in existence 'ere so far back as the Roman
occupation, as is proved by a hancient stone receptacle recently
discovered under the crypt and hevidently used for baptismal purposes.
A SPECTACLED S. (_who feels it due to herself to put an intelligent
question at intervals._) What _was_ the method of baptism among the
Early Christians?
The VERGER. We believe it to 'ave been by total immersion, Ma'am.