o the religion of my country. I had not been in such a place I
cannot tell for how long--certainly not for years; and now I had found my
way there again, it appeared as if I had fallen asleep in the pew of the
old church of pretty D---. {54a} I had occasionally done so when a
child, and had suddenly woke up. Yes, surely I had been asleep and had
woken up; but, no! alas, no! I had not been asleep--at least not in the
old church--if I had been asleep I had been walking in my sleep,
struggling, striving, learning, and unlearning in my sleep. Years had
rolled away whilst I had been asleep--ripe fruit had fallen, green fruit
had come on whilst I had been asleep--how circumstances had altered, and
above all myself, whilst I had been asleep. No, I had not been asleep in
the old church! I was in a pew it is true, but not the pew of black
leather, in which I sometimes fell asleep in days of yore, but in a
strange pew; and then my companions, they were no longer those of days of
yore. I was no longer with my respectable father and mother, and my dear
brother, but with the gypsy cral {54b} and his wife, and the gigantic
Tawno, the Antinous of the dusky people. And what was I myself? No
longer an innocent child, but a moody man, bearing in my face, as I knew
well, the marks of my strivings and strugglings, of what I had learnt and
unlearnt; nevertheless, the general aspect of things brought to my mind
what I had felt and seen of yore. There was difference enough it is
true, but still there was a similarity--at least I thought so--the
church, the clergyman, and the clerk, differing in many respects from
those of pretty D---, put me strangely in mind of them; and then the
words!--by-the-by, was it not the magic of the words which brought the
dear enchanting past so powerfully before the mind of Lavengro? for the
words were the same sonorous words of high import which had first made an
impression on his childish ear in the old church of pretty D---.

The liturgy was now over, during the reading of which my companions
behaved in a most unexceptionable manner, sitting down and rising up when
other people sat down and rose, and holding in their hands Prayer-books
which they found in the pew, into which they stared intently, though I
observed that, with the exception of Mrs. Petulengro, who knew how to
read a little, they held the books by the top, and not the bottom, as is
the usual way. The clergyman now ascended the pulpit, a