Page:Navvies and Their Needs.djvu/23

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NAVVIES AND THEIR NEEDS.
19

and I fancy some of them lent him a thing or two, for he hadn't got no Sunday clothes." I like going to No. 13; but we must not linger here, it is not a fair specimen. In no other hut will you find the same peace and quiet this Sunday morning. We must visit others this afternoon, now we should only be in the way.

"I'll take the key of the church with me," I say, as we rise to go, and Mrs. Sharp reaches it for me from the nail where it always hangs; and so we pass up between the rows and towards the wood. A little way above the huts, standing back under the shadow of the trees, is our church. It is not a handsome structure, nor can it boast of anything that could be described as architecture. If it has any beauty, it is that of simplicity, set off by the lovely frame of stately woods in which it is seen. The windows are square, and the only ecclesiastical features it possesses are its high-pitched roof and the little bell-tower which adorns its western gable. Within there is less of the picturesque than without. The walls are plastered and whitewashed, and the only break in the monotonous white neatness is caused by the presence of a large round stove, whose black flue, despairing of concealment, ascends with honest straight-forwardness to the hole made for it in the roof. Neat wooden benches supply seats for about l00 persons; and a plain communion-table and reading-desk, complete the furniture. We have no service here till the evenings, the clergyman who takes it having to officiate first at morning and afternoon services in his parish church. So we do not stay now, but having just seen that all is right and ready for the evening, we go on our way. There is one other public building in our village. It is one of the out–liers I spoke of just now, and is