3 in the afternoon. We were surprised to see such large
congregations on a wet day, but concluded that the people were so
accustomed to rain in that part of the country that they looked upon it
as a matter of course. The people of Keswick evidently had other views
as regards church-going than is expressed in the following lines by an
author whose name we do not remember:
No pelting rain can make us stay
When we have tickets for the play;
But let one drop the side-walk smirch.
And it's too wet to go to church.
At the morning service we sat in a pew in the rear of the church, and at
one point in the service when it was usual in that part of the country
for the congregation to sit down, one gentleman only remained standing.
We could scarcely believe our own eyes when we recognised in this
solitary figure the commanding form of Colonel Greenall of the
Warrington Volunteers, a gentleman whom we know full well, for his
brother was the rector of Grappenhall, our native village, where the
Colonel himself formerly resided.
He was a great stickler for a due recognition of that pleasing but
old-fashioned custom now fallen out of use, of the boys giving the
rector, the squire, or any other prominent member of their families a
respectful recognition when meeting them in the village or on their
walks abroad.
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