himself in advance of the other two, and the tranter moving on with toes
turned outwards to an enormous angle.

At the foot of an incline the church became visible through the north
gate, or 'church hatch,' as it was called here. Seven agile figures in a
clump were observable beyond, which proved to be the choristers waiting;
sitting on an altar-tomb to pass the time, and letting their heels dangle
against it. The musicians being now in sight, the youthful party
scampered off and rattled up the old wooden stairs of the gallery like a
regiment of cavalry; the other boys of the parish waiting outside and
observing birds, cats, and other creatures till the vicar entered, when
they suddenly subsided into sober church-goers, and passed down the aisle
with echoing heels.

The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment of its own. A
stranger there was regarded with a feeling altogether differing from that
of the congregation below towards him. Banished from the nave as an
intruder whom no originality could make interesting, he was received
above as a curiosity that no unfitness could render dull. The gallery,
too, looked down upon and knew the habits of the nave to its remotest
peculiarity, and had an extensive stock of exclusive information about
it; whilst the nave knew nothing of the gallery folk, as gallery folk,
beyond their loud-sounding minims and chest notes. Such topics as that
the clerk was always chewing tobacco except at the moment of crying amen;
that he had a dust-hole in his pew; that during the sermon certain young
daughters of the village had left off caring to read anything so mild as
the marriage service for some years, and now regularly studied the one
which chronologically follows it; that a pair of lovers touched fingers
through a knot-hole between their pews in the manner ordained by their
great exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that Mrs. Ledlow, the farmer's wife,