Lanterna Rally

Author: Elizabeth Harcourt Mitchell

Publisher: General Books

Published: 2009-08

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9781458952998

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. FINDING A FRIEND. T ASPER did not take long to get from the harbour to the .J little village of Charlton, then a quiet place out in the fields, now a populous suburb of the great thriving town of Dover, with its thirty thousand inhabitants. The leather case was light on his shoulder, for was it not a case of books ? and Jasper had such respect for learning, that to be allowed to fetch and carry for a student was happiness enough for him. As he passed the tiny church on his way to the Rectory he heard a low murmur, and turning back he saw that the door was open. He turned into the low dark church and felt at once the atmosphere of peace and calm which reigned within. Cool and refreshing to both body and spirit, he gave himself up to that quiet influence. The Rector's voice was saying Evensong. There was no choir, no acolyte, no pomp or show of any sort or kind, for the ancient worship had been shorn of all its outward glory, but the voice went on in simple majesty, a protest against hurry and worldliness. Jasper was naturally a devout lad, but he had been hurried and excited by all the strange scenes he had witnessed, and he scarcely entered into the spirit of the service, for his thoughts were in a whirl, but he felt soothed and quieted. He knelt for a moment, and then joined outwardly with the rest, though he hardly knew what he wasdoing. The little church bore evident marks of the great change which had taken place in the days of Edward VI. The chancel screen was still left, and the cross still towered in the midst of it, but the figure on the cross had been rudely torn off, and the figures of S. Mary and S. John, which had once stood on each side, had been struck off as with the blows of a hatchet. One foot had been left of S. John, and the two feet and ...