premise: <mask> their chairs forwards
hypothesis: the best context for <mask> here is An assembly for religious worship; esp., such an assembly held privately, as in times of persecution, by Nonconformists or Dissenters in England, or by Covenanters in Scotland; -- often used opprobriously, as if those assembled were heretics or schismatics.; but not To move by little and little or cautiously, as by pressing forward edgewise.