“Father goes to see the bad people in Easney as well as the good ones,” she said, more to herself than her godmother. “Lots of them never come to church.”
“Easney is quite different from a cathedral town,” said Miss Unity with dignity.
And here the conversation ended, partly because Pennie had no answer to make to this statement, and partly because it was time to go to the evening service. It was a special service to-night, for a sermon was to be preached in aid of foreign missions by the Bishop of Karawayo. This was particularly interesting to Miss Unity, and though Pennie did not care about the bishop it was always a great pleasure to her to go to the Cathedral.
“May we go in through the cloisters?” she asked as they crossed the Close.
Miss Unity much preferred entering at the west door and thought the cloisters damp, but she willingly assented, for it was difficult for her to refuse Pennie anything.
There was something about the murky dimness of the cloisters which filled Pennie with a sort of pleasant awe. She shivered a little as she walked through them, not with cold, but because she fancied them thronged with unseen presences. How many, many feet must have trod those ancient flag-stones to have worn them into such waves and hollows. Perhaps they still went hurrying through the cloisters, and that was what made the air feel so thick with mystery, and why she was never inclined to talk while she was there.
Miss Unity always went as swiftly through the cloisters as possible; and Pennie, keeping close to her side, tried as she went along to make out the half-effaced inscriptions at her feet. There was one she liked specially, and always took care not to tread upon:
Jane Lister Deare Childe.
Aged 6 Years. 1629.
By degrees she had built up a history about this little girl, and felt that she knew her quite well, so that she was always glad to pass her resting-place and say something to her in her thoughts.
Through a very low-arched doorway—so low that Miss Unity had to bend her head to go under it—they entered the dimly-lighted Cathedral. Only the choir was used for the service, and the great nave, with its solemn marble tombs here and there, was half-dark and deserted. Pillars, shafts, and arches loomed indistinct yet gigantic, and seemed to rise up, up, up, till they were lost in a misty invisible region together with the sounds of the organ and the echoes of the choristers’ voices.