The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1877-02-08
CHAPTER V.
MY BROTHERS SIN,

As organist of st. Ethelred's, Ruth
had the privilege of practicing in the
church on such afternoons ms were
available. She used to secure the SER
vices of one of the younger Lemires,
generally Charlotte, as blower; and it
was at such times her rarest pleasure
to sit before the grand old organ for
long hours, playing till the evening
shadows turned the obscurities of the
old church into deep blackness, and
softened the stiff outlines of the kneel-
ing marble figures. st. Etheldred's q
is church spared by the Great Fire,
and half forgotten when it was a
mark of grace to destroy the images
of the dead. Here lie the mortal re-
mains of dead lord mayor and alder
man; here, kneeling gravely opposite
each other, are the efiigies of knight
and dame; here is crusader with his
legs crossed; here is the mitred abbot,
the crozier turned away from his face
to mark that he was no bishop. but
yet greater than bishop in the admira-
ton of his immense revenues: here
are monuments OF all the centuries
from the fourteenth, stiff and man
ing, and once with bright colors, now
all faced and forgotten, to the spraw-
ling, tastless tomb of the last century.
There will be no monuments in the
old church, and, in course of time,
the desecrating hand Of the City ar
chitect will remove the venerable
stones and the monuments, to make
room for a new street, or to build new
city offices. But foremost among the
tombs at present is that of old alder
man Sowerbutts. st. Ethelred's il,
as an uneducated describer might put
it, two churches side by side. The
scanty congregation sit in the right
hand church, which faces the altar
and in the north side stands the
tcmhs, except few of the older ones,
which are in the south wall. The
tomb of Alderman Sowerbutts occu-
pies a large part of the north aisle to
itself. 1t is striking monument,
containing many tons of marble, and
surrounded by gilt railing. The wor-
thy alderman died in the year 1891,
just about the period when benevo-
81 in hA .I1 ich nf
Of almshouses and institutions of char
liable education, was invented. BY
his will he directed that the bulk of
his fortune should be expended in the
maintenance, first, of houses for the
reception Of twelve widows of livery
men from his own guild; and second
ly, of a school where twenty boys and
twenty girls, born in the parish of St.
Ethelrcd, should receive sound Pro-
testant education, free of all charges.
This was very noble, and pleased
every body, except the lawful heirs of
Alderman Sowerbutts, who for some
generations afterward, CRASHED their
teeth when they passed the church of
st. Ethelred. There was another
provision in the will of the testator,
BY which it was directed that the rec
tor of the parish, accompanied by his
church h-wardens, one of his trustees,
the clerk, the -chool-master, and six
of the boys, should, once a year, visit
the church, open the tomb, and salts
fy themselves that he-the deceased
alderman actually there in the
flesh, and not removed. Why this
mortal dread of being taken out of tn e
grave assailed the alderman, it is i'm
possible to explain. But the fact is SO
and until very few years ago the an
nual procession was made with great
solemnity.
The church, old rs it was, standing
two feet between the level and four
feet below the level of its little church
yard, piled high with the dust of
five-and-twenty articulately speaking
generations, was Ruth Warneford's s
private sanctum when she could spare
an hour. She aud Charlotte, the lame
girl would sit in the quiet old place by
themselves, alone and silent, watching
the light from the painted windows
play upon the deserted aisles, or talk
ing in whispers, or the child would
pump the bellows while Ruth played.
They let themselves into the church
by the vestry door, and were secured
against any chance visitors, while the
busy city rushed to and fro among the
alleys outside. No rural corner of
green England, no country church
yard in the widest country district,
could match the solitude and lonliness
of this old City place of worship on
any afternoon in the week.
Stay, there was one visitor. Ruth
Warneford kept her Saturday after