In his demeanour we discover an attempt to appear at the altar with becoming decorum: but internal perturbation darts through assumed tranquillity; for though he is plighting his troth to the old woman, his eyes are fixed on the young girl who kneels behind her.[82]
The parson and clerk seem made for each other: a sleepy, stupid solemnity marks every muscle of the divine, and the nasal droning of the lay brother is most happily expressed. Accompanied by her child and mother, the unfortunate victim of his seduction is here again introduced, endeavouring to enter the church and forbid the banns. The opposition made by an old pew-opener, with her bunch of keys, gave the artist a good opportunity for indulging his taste in the burlesque, and he has not neglected it.
A dog[83] paying his addresses to a one-eyed quadruped of his own species, is a happy parody of the unnatural union going on in the church.
The Commandments are broken:[84] a crack runs near the tenth, which says, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife;" a prohibition in the present case hardly necessary. The Creed is destroyed by the damps of the church; and so little attention has been paid to the poor's box, that—it is covered with a cobweb!!! These three high-wrought strokes of satirical humour were perhaps never equalled by an exertion of the pencil; excelled they cannot be.
On one of the pew-doors is the following curious specimen of churchyard poetry and mortuary orthography:—
These : pewes : vnscrud : and tane : in : svnder
In : stone : thers : grauen : what : is : vnder
To : wit : a valt : for : burial : there : is
Which : Edward : Forset : made : for : him : and : his.[85]
A glory over the bride's head is whimsical.
The bay and holly, which decorate the pews, give a date to the period, and determine this preposterous union of January with June to have taken place about the time of Christmas,