"Gaskell, Elizabeth C - The Life Of Charlotte Bronte - vol 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gaskell Elizabeth C)

terribly full of upright tombstones. The chapel or church claims
greater antiquity than any other in that part of the kingdom; but
there is no appearance of this in the external aspect of the
present edifice, unless it be in the two eastern windows, which
remain unmodernized, and in the lower part of the steeple.
Inside, the character of the pillars shows that they were
constructed before the reign of Henry VII. It is probable that
there existed on this ground, a "field-kirk," or oratory, in the
earliest times; and, from the Archbishop's registry at York, it is
ascertained that there was a chapel at Haworth in 1317. The
inhabitants refer inquirers concerning the date to the following
inscription on a stone in the church tower:-


"Hic fecit Caenobium Monachorum Auteste fundator. A. D.
sexcentissimo."


That is to say, before the preaching of Christianity in
Northumbria. Whitaker says that this mistake originated in the
illiterate copying out, by some modern stone-cutter, of an
inscription in the character of Henry the Eighth's time on an
adjoining stone:-


"Orate pro bono statu Eutest Tod."

"Now every antiquary knows that the formula of prayer 'bono statu'
always refers to the living. I suspect this singular Christian
name has been mistaken by the stone-cutter for Austet, a
contraction of Eustatius, but the word Tod, which has been mis-
read for the Arabic figures 600, is perfectly fair and legible.
On the presumption of this foolish claim to antiquity, the people
would needs set up for independence, and contest the right of the
Vicar of Bradford to nominate a curate at Haworth."


I have given this extract, in order to explain the imaginary
groundwork of a commotion which took place in Haworth about five
and thirty years ago, to which I shall have occasion to allude
again more particularly.

The interior of the church is commonplace; it is neither old
enough nor modern enough to compel notice. The pews are of black
oak, with high divisions; and the names of those to whom they
belong are painted in white letters on the doors. There are
neither brasses, nor altar-tombs, nor monuments, but there is a
mural tablet on the right-hand side of the communion-table,
bearing the following inscription:-