noon
The middle ages . Massive old arches , chipped , and stained ; a moldering altar-piece , dog 's - eared -LRB- Henry had nailed it up again all but the top corner , and in it still faintly gleamed the Virgin 's golden crown -RRB- . Pulpit , richly carved , but moldering : gaunt walls , streaked and stained by time . At the west end , one saint -- the last of many -- lit by two candles , and glowing ruby red across the intervening gulf of blackness : on the nearest wall an inscription , that still told , in rusty letters , how Giles de la Beche had charged his lands with six merks a year forever , to buy bread and white watered herrings , the same to be brought into Cairnhope Church every Sunday in Lent , and given to two poor men and four women ; and the same on Good Friday with a penny dole , and , on that day , the clerk to toll the bell at three of the clock after noon , and read the lamentation of a sinner , and receive one groat . Ancient monuments , sculptures with here an arm gone , and here a head , that yet looked half-alive in the weird and partial light . And between one of those mediaeval sculptures , and that moldering picture of the Virgin , stood a living horse , munching his corn ; and in the foreground was a portable forge , a mausoleum turned into fires and hot plate , and a young man , type of his century , forging table-knives amidst the wrecks of another age . When Grace had taken in the whole scene with wonder , her eye was absorbed by this one figure , a model of manly strength , and skill , and grace .