Page:Far from the Madding Crowd Vol 1.djvu/207



a week-day morning a small congregation, consisting mainly of women and girls, rose from its knees in the mouldy nave of All Saints' Church, Melchester, at the end of a service without a sermon. They were about to disperse, when a smart footstep, entering the porch and coming up the central passage, arrested their attention. The step echoed with a ring unusual in a church; it was the clink of spurs. Everybody looked. A young cavalry soldier in a red uniform, with the three chevrons of a sergeant upon his sleeve, strode up the aisle, with an embarrassment which was only the more accented by the intense vigour of his step, and by the determination upon his face to show none. A slight flush had mounted his cheek by the time he had run the gauntlet between these females; but, passing on through the chancel arch, he never paused till he came close to the altar railing. Here for a moment he stood alone.