"Sir Morton Pippitt has left Badsworth Hall for a tour round the
world. Miss Pippitt accompanies her distinguished father."
Then followed a spell of peace;--and the restoration of the church
at St. Rest was quietly proceeded with. Lovingly, and with tenderest
care for every stone, every broken fragment, John Walden pieced
together the ruined shrine of ancient days, and managed at last to
trace and recover the whole of the original plan. It had never been
a large building, its proportions being about the same as those of
Roslin Chapel, near Edinburgh. The task of restoration was costly,
especially when carried out with such perfection and regard to
detail,--but Walden grudged nothing to make it complete, and
superintended the whole thing himself, rejecting all the semi-
educated suggestions of the modern architect, and faithfully
following out the ideas of the particular period in which the church
was originally designed by those to whom the building of a 'God's
House' was a work of solemn prayer and praise. The ancient stones
were preserved, and wherever modern masonry was used, it was
cunningly worked in to look as time-worn as the Norman walls, while
the lancet windows were filled with genuine old stained glass
purchased by degrees from different parts of England, each fragment
being properly authenticated. A groined roof, simple yet noble in
outline, covered in the building; ornamented with delicately rounded
mouldings alternated with hollows so planned as to give the most
forcible effects of light and shade according to the style of
English Early Pointed work, and the only thing that was left
incomplete was the pierced circular window above the chancel, which
Walden sought to fill with stained glass of such indubitable
antiquity and beauty of design that he was only able to secure it
bit by bit at long intervals. While engaged in collecting this, he
judged it best to fill the window with ordinary clear glass rather
than put in inferior stuff. age system exactly in the middle of the
chancel, fronting the altar, we will let it remain there and occupy
its own original place. The chancel could not have a grander
ornament!
And so, in the middle of the chancel, between the altar and the
steps which separated that part of the church from the main body of
the building, the mysterious undated relic lay under the warm light
of the eastern window, and people who were interested in antiquities
came from far and near to see it, though they could make no more of
it than Walden himself had done. The cross and sword might possibly
indicate martyrdom; the laurels and thorn fame. Certainly there were
no signs that the dumb occupant of that sealed coffer was a monarch
of merely earthly power and state. When the alabaster came to be
thoroughly cleansed and polished, part of the inscription could be
deciphered in the following letters of worn gold:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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