840]	CHILDHOOD	107
,ny novel, or any kind of work of fiction,, absolutely ricked at this time, but Grannie took in "Pickwick/' diich was coming out in numbers. She read it by .er dressing-room fire with closed doors, and her old laid, Cowbourne, well on the watch against intruders
—	" elle prenait la peine de s'en divertir avec tout le
espect du monde; " and I used to pick the fragments
ut of the waste-paper basket, piece them together,
nd read them too.
Sundays were far less horrid at Stoke than at .ome, for Grannie generally found something for me o do. Most primitive were the church services, very ifferent indeed from the ritualism which has reigned t Stoke since, and which is sufficient to bring the Id grandparents out of their graves. In our day he Rectory-pew bore a carved inscription —
God prosper y^e Kynge long in tliys lancle
And grant that Papystrie never have y° vper hande,
ut the present Rector has removed it.
I can see the congregation still in imagination, he old women in their red cloaks, and large black onnets; the old men with their glistening brass uttons, and each with his bunch of southern-wood
—	^a old man" — to snuff at.    In my childhood the
Lines of the hymns were always given with a pitch-
ape.    "Dame Button's School" used to be ranged
ound the altar, and the grand old alabaster tomb
f Sir Reginald Corbet, and if any of the children
•ehaved ill during the service, they were turned up
ind soundly whipped then and there, their outcries
singling oddly with the  responses of the congre-