This, as I said
before, was the nave of the old Abbey church, and has a one-sided and
unbalanced aspect, there being only a single aisle, with its row of
sturdy pillars. The pavement is covered with pews of old oak, very
homely and unornamental; on the side opposite the aisle there are two or
three windows of modern stained glass, somewhat gaudy and impertinent;
there are likewise some hatchments and escutcheons over the altar and
elsewhere. On the whole, it is not an impressive interior; but, at any
rate, it had the true musty odor which I never conceived of till I came
to England,--the odor of dead men's decay, garnered up and shut in, and
kept from generation to generation; not disgusting nor sickening, because
it is so old, and of the past.
On one side of the altar there was a small square chapel,--or what had
once been a chapel, separated from the chancel by a partition about a
man's height, if I remember aright. Our guide led us into it, and
observed that some years ago the pavement had been taken up in this spot,
for burial purposes; but it was found that it had already been used in
that way, and that the corpses had been buried upright.
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