Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller

their mystery; mysterious I found them; mysterious they shall

remain for me.

Where shall I begin my round of hidden and forgotten old churches

in the City of London?

Page 54

Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller

It is twenty minutes short of eleven on a Sunday morning, when I

stroll down one of the many narrow hilly streets in the City that

tend due south to the Thames. It is my first experiment, and I

have come to the region of Whittington in an omnibus, and we have

put down a fierce-eyed, spare old woman, whose slate-coloured gown

smells of herbs, and who walked up Aldersgate-street to some chapel

where she comforts herself with brimstone doctrine, I warrant. We

have also put down a stouter and sweeter old lady, with a pretty

large prayer-book in an unfolded pocket-handkerchief, who got out

at a corner of a court near Stationers’ Hall, and who I think must

go to church there, because she is the widow of some deceased old

Company’s Beadle. The rest of our freight were mere chance

pleasure-seekers and rural walkers, and went on to the Blackwall

railway. So many bells are ringing, when I stand undecided at a

street corner, that every sheep in the ecclesiastical fold might be

a bell-wether. The discordance is fearful. My state of indecision

is referable to, and about equally divisible among, four great

churches, which are all within sight and sound, all within the

space of a few square yards.

As I stand at the street corner, I don’t see as many as four people

at once going to church, though I see as many as four churches with

their steeples clamouring for people. I choose my church, and go

up the flight of steps to the great entrance in the tower. A

mouldy tower within, and like a neglected washhouse. A rope comes

through the beamed roof, and a man in the corner pulls it and

clashes the bell – a whity-brown man, whose clothes were once black

– a man with flue on him, and cobweb. He stares at me, wondering

how I come there, and I stare at him, wondering how he comes there.

Through a screen of wood and glass, I peep into the dim church.

About twenty people are discernible, waiting to begin. Christening

would seem to have faded out of this church long ago, for the font

has the dust of desuetude thick upon it, and its wooden cover

(shaped like an old-fashioned tureen-cover) looks as if it wouldn’t

come off, upon requirement. I perceive the altar to be rickety and

the Commandments damp. Entering after this survey, I jostle the

clergyman in his canonicals, who is entering too from a dark lane

behind a pew of state with curtains, where nobody sits. The pew is

ornamented with four blue wands, once carried by four somebodys, I

suppose, before somebody else, but which there is nobody now to

hold or receive honour from. I open the door of a family pew, and

shut myself in; if I could occupy twenty family pews at once I

might have them. The clerk, a brisk young man (how does HE come

here?), glances at me knowingly, as who should say, ‘You have done

it now; you must stop.’ Organ plays. Organ-loft is in a small

gallery across the church; gallery congregation, two girls. I

wonder within myself what will happen when we are required to sing.

There is a pale heap of books in the corner of my pew, and while

the organ, which is hoarse and sleepy, plays in such fashion that I

can hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music,

I look at the books, which are mostly bound in faded baize and

stuff. They belonged in 1754, to the Dowgate family; and who were

they? Jane Comport must have married Young Dowgate, and come into

the family that way; Young Dowgate was courting Jane Comport when

he gave her her prayer-book, and recorded the presentation in the

fly-leaf; if Jane were fond of Young Dowgate, why did she die and

leave the book here? Perhaps at the rickety altar, and before the

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *