"Verger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Now, Jenkins was verger and pew-opener in the church as well as trusted assistant to the aged minister, but the ways and language of the fo'c's'l came back to him with irresistible force when he gazed on the ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... fill a note-book and to use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... unmolested about twenty minutes when the verger asked him whether he wouldn't like to walk round. Mr Harding didn't want to walk anywhere, and declined, merely observing that he was waiting for the morning service. The verger, seeing that he was a ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... and stopped, and the organ began to play. When all were ready they stepped into a long corridor and formed in line with their faces to the chancel and their backs to a little door, at which a verger in ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... sa course rapide, insultait un ruisseau timide dont l'onde arrosait un verger. "Va, lui dit le ruisseau, sois fier de l'avantage d'offrir a chaque pas quelque nouveau danger. Je serais bien fache d'avoir pour mon partage l'honneur cruel que tu poursuis: tu t'annonces par le ravage; moi, par les biens que ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... was always being taken up. He died in the year 814, and was left undisturbed till the year 1000, when the Emperor OTTO THE THIRD opened his tomb, and, finding his great predecessor sitting on a marble chair, helped him down. The marble chair is on view in the Cathedral to this day (verger, I mark) to witness to the truth of this narrative. One hundred and sixty-five years later, FREDERICK BARBAROSSA opened the second tomb where OTHO had placed C., and transferred to a marble sarcophagus what, at this ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... was a lad," pursued the other, after sipping at his refilled glass, "I lived just by an old church in the City, and I knew the verger, and he used to let me look over the registers. I think that's what gave me my turn for genealogy. I believe there are fellows who get a living by hunting up pedigrees; that would just suit me, if I only knew how ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... being again in Venice, I inquired from the Verger of St. Mark's if Dragonetti's Violone was in the church, and I could see it. The reply was in the affirmative, but as the Fabbricieri had the care of the instrument, under lock and key, it would be necessary to see them ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... morning we took a fly (an English term for an exceedingly sluggish vehicle), and drove up to the Minster by a road rather less steep and abrupt than the one we had previously climbed. We alighted before the west front, and sent our charioteer in quest of the verger; but, as he was not immediately to be found, a young girl let us into the nave. We found it very grand, it is needless to say, but not so grand, methought, as the vast nave of York Cathedral, especially beneath the great central tower of the ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that has so many sacred recollections to me," says Mr. Tusher (and Harry remembered how Tom's father used to flog him there)—"a house near to that of my respected patron, my most honoured patroness, must ever be a dear abode to me. But, madam, the verger waits to close the gates ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... then been unable to dispose of, now suddenly become tradeable, and go off with a rush. For instance, on one occasion a lady appeared at Mass in a bustle which filled the church to an extent which led the verger on duty to bid the commoner folk withdraw to the porch, lest the lady's toilet should be soiled in the crush. Even Chichikov could not help privately remarking the attention which he aroused. On one occasion, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... sun one could hear the sound of his hammer in the cloister. This sole evidence of profane work attracted all the unoccupied to the miserable and evil-smelling dwelling. Mariano, the Tato, and a verger who also lived in the cloister, were those who most frequently met Gabriel, seated on the shoemaker's ragged and broken chairs, so low that one could touch the floor of red and dusty bricks with ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris, I told the verger I was very anxious to see the likeness of the saint who had walked for six miles with his head in his hand, because I was the nearest living counterpart, having walked a quarter of a mile with my ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... clad in a rusty and seedy black robe, from beneath which a hand was thrust forth, and the words, "two-pence each," sounded harshly on our ears. Two-pence each was accordingly paid, and then the surly janitor, or verger, as he is called, admitted us within the building. In a moment afterwards, we were beneath the dome of St. Paul's. If this part of the edifice has appeared imposing when viewed from without, how much grander did it seem now that we stood on the marble pavement below, and ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... hurriedly that more than one smiled. He had the bearing of a lay clerk of some precinct, a verger or sacristan; and after a fashion the dress of one also, for he was in dusty black and wore no sword, though he was girded with a belt. "No!" he repeated, "but if Madame will come to the gate, and speak ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... is evidence in Smith's Life of Nollekens, vol. i. p. 79., that remains of the painted figure of Chaucer were to be seen in Nolleken's times. Smith reports a conversation between the artist and Catlin, so many years the principal verger of the abbey, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... have gone on playing till midnight 'but for a very earthy verger,' who insisted on locking up the cathedral and turning ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... Elizabeth Lygon, of Madresfield. The fifth son, James, entered the Church, became Bishop of Ely, and was the ancestor of the Yorkes of Forthampton. I had the luck many years ago to have a talk with an old verger in Ely Cathedral who remembered Bishop Yorke, and who told me that he used to draw such congregations by the power of his oratory and the breadth of his teaching, that when he preached, all the dissenting chapels in the neighbourhood ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... then required to choose two of the company as sponsors, and being placed in an arm-chair, his shoes were taken off, and his head uncovered. The officiator, vested in a cantab's gown and cap, with a book in one hand and a bell in the other, with a verger on each side, robed, and holding staves (alias broomsticks) and candles, preceded by the suttler, bearing a bowl of punch, entered the parlour, and demanded "If there was an infidel present?" Being answered, "Yes," he asked, "What did he require?" Answer. "To be initiated." Q. "Where are the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... Sunday, service was performed for the last time. On the 23rd the steeple fell in and took the roof with it; the workmen had left the church a few minutes before. Even then there was at least one untroubled soul in Guildford. The verger was told that the steeple had fallen. "That cannot be," he replied, "I have the key in ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... county the prosecution was unpopular. During no portion of his Parliamentary career had Mr. Browborough's name been treated with so much respect in the grandly ecclesiastical city as now. He dined with the Dean on the day before the trial, and on the Sunday was shown by the head verger into the stall next to the Chancellor of the Diocese, with a reverence which seemed to imply that he was almost as graceful as a martyr. When he took his seat in the Court next to his attorney, everybody shook hands with him. When Sir Gregory got up to open his case, not one of the listeners then ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... VERGER. From the Latin Virga, a Rod. One who carries the mace before the Dean or Canons in a Cathedral, or conducts the congregation to their seats ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... I pass one of the tombs on my way to the Chapel of Abbot Islip. Anon the verger will have stepped briskly forward, drawing a deep breath, with his flock well to heel, and will be telling the secrets of the next tomb on his ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... discover a solution to the mystery, but failed. One day, however, I showed the Dean the old manuscript in my possession, and was surprised to hear that he knew of a tradition of the appearance, once a year, of the apparition. An old verger, since dead, had declared several times that he had seen it; but, being old and childish, no one took any notice ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... and the almost equally fine Sir Joshuas. But even the glance they had was but a passing one, as the servant trotted them through the rooms with the rapidity of locomotion and explanation of a Westminster Abbey verger; and he made a fierce attack on Verdant, who had lagged behind, and was short-sightedly peering at the celebrated "Charles the First" of Vandyck, as though he had lingered in order to surreptitiously appropriate some of the tables, couches, and other trifling articles ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows; the marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of a verger, traversing the Poet's Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... told that this viol was ten feet high. Hans used to play this instrument at the village church, and his playing drew such crowds that the preacher had just cause for jealousy, and improved the opportunity, yet stifling his rage he ordered the verger to lock the doors and allow no one to depart until after the sermon ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... him entered on the Army Books 'as Major Quintus Icilius;' his Majorship is to be dated '10th April, 1758' (to give him seniority); and from and after this '26th May, 1759,' he is to command the late Du Verger's Free-Battalion. All which was done:—the War-Offices somewhat astonished at such advent of an antique Roman among them; but writing as bidden, the hand being plain, and the man an undeniable article. Onward from which time there is always a 'Battalion Quintus' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Poets' Corner, listening while Mrs. Homer named the illustrious dead around them; followed the verger from chapel to chapel with intelligent interest as he told the story of each historical or royal tomb, and gave up Madam Tussaud's wax-work to spend several happy hours sketching the beautiful cloisters in the Abbey to add to her collection of water-colors, ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... carved heads in arcading of wall, (3) double archway of door. Before returning to the nave the visitor should make an examination of the Monuments in the transepts and choir aisles. Their identity will best be discovered from a glance at the plan provided by the verger. Here mention will only be made of the most notable. In S. transept, against S. wall (1) William de Marchia (1319), builder of the chapter house; (2) Viscountess Lisle, with coloured canopy (14th cent.). In Chapel of St Calixtus (1) shrine of Bishop Beckington, unhappily detached from ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... persisted Edith, as the girls giggled. "It happened to my sister. She always plays at the Band of Hope concerts in our village at home, and she goes down to the school to practise her solos on the piano there. Old Thomas is the verger, and he's such a queer old character. He really did think she didn't know how to play properly when she crossed her hands over, and he told her so. It was a tremendous joke in our family, because Maisie considers herself musical. She was squashed ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... as a Canon of Westminster, immediately attracting enormous congregations to hear him preach, his sermons being distinguished by a most singular simplicity, a profound piety, and above all by a deep honesty of conviction which few who heard him could withstand. Weller, the Dean's verger at the Abbey, has many stories to tell of the long queues at Westminster which in those days were one of the sights of London. The Abbey has never since recovered its place as a centre ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... was to be married in October, and in these circumstances Mrs. Gibson, Miss Banks, and Mrs. Church put their banns up. This acted as a specific, and Captain Barber, putting the best face he could on the matter, went and interviewed the verger on his own behalf. ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... once feel privileged to look down on you like a Jupiter, pour montrer son pouvoir when you go to take a ticket. 'Now then,' he says, 'I shall show you my power'... and in them it comes to a genuine, administrative ardour. En un mot, I've read that some verger in one of our Russian churches abroad—mais c'est ires curieux—drove, literally drove a distinguished English family, les dames charmantes, out of the church before the beginning of the Lenten service ... vous savez ces chants et le livre de Job... on ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... peregrinations; and that they were not suffered, by law, to travel beyond it: but whether this law restricted them from entering Suabia, or Bavaria, I could not learn. I approached the church, and with the aid of a good-natured verger, who happened luckily to speak French, I was conducted all over the interior—which was sufficiently neat. But the object of my peculiar astonishment was, that Jews, Protestants, and Catholics, all flocked alike, and frequently, at the SAME TIME, to exercise their particular forms of worship ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... It was declared and resolved that his Majesty should be informed that the cathedral of these islands has no buildings, ornaments, or suitable equipment for divine worship; nor has it any income or contributions for these purposes, or for sacristan, verger, or other necessary assistants. And being built of wood and straw, as it is, and so poor, weatherbeaten, and deprived of necessities, it is a reproach and a cause of loss to our faith and Christian religion, and to our state and the men who rule the state, and even to the majesty and greatness ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... things assumed a brighter tone. There was no lack of witnesses to sign the register. The verger pointed out to them the place, and they wrote their names, as people in such cases do, without stopping to read. Then it occurred to some one that the bride had not yet signed. She stood apart, with her veil ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... on the heavy Norman architecture it was about to overthrow. The sculptures on the W. portals, however, almost wholly and clumsily renewed, need not detain us long. We enter and descend from the sombre vestibule. As we wait for the verger we revel in the airy and graceful symmetry of the nave and aisles; the beautiful raised choir and lovely apse with its chevets and round of chapels, where structural science and beauty of form are so admirably blended. ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... stately calm, as she waited for the arrival of the Darcy family, but even she felt a tremor of excitement when the verger hobbled up to the square pew and stood holding the door open in his hand. The heads of the villagers turned with one consent to the doorway; only one person in the church disdained to move her position, but she heard the clatter of horses' ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... for forty year, but I never heard a Amen carry so far as Muster GELGE pitches his.' It's something to be appreciated, TOBY. Can't say that House of Commons has taken to me kindly; but toward what may be the close of a Parliamentary career, the tribute of this honest Verger ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... looked on coldly, but not irreverently, and was glad to see the funeral service so well performed, and very glad when it was over. What struck me as singular, the person who performed the part usually performed by a verger, keeping order among the audience, wore a gold-embroidered scarf, a cocked hat, and, I believe, a sword, and had the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... The verger had gone, and she was quite alone. Deep in the shadow of a gallery she slid to her knees and hid her face. "O God!" she whispered,—"O God, forgive me!" And again the words seemed torn from ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Gert again, when the Bishop's Secretary enters, preceded by a verger, who calls upon the ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... of a scholar, something of a philosopher, but a wit and a singer, Heine, visited England, and, as he handed a fee to the verger who had shown him around Westminster Abbey, said: "I would willingly give you twice as much if the collection were complete!" To him Napoleon defeated was a greater man than the "starched, stiff" Wellington; and the "potatoes boiled in water and put on the table as God made them" and the "country ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... reading-desk and pulpit were occupied by a lot of brickmakers, among whom the parson from Barchester did not venture to attempt to make his way, although he was fortified by the presence of one of the cathedral vergers and by one of the palace footmen. I can hardly believe about the verger and the footman. As for the rest, I have no doubt it is all true. I pity Crawley from my heart. Poor, unfortunate man! The general opinion seems to be that he is not in truth responsible for what he does. As for his victory over the bishop, nothing ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... and glory of this church is that of the famous MARSHAL SAXE; who died at the age of 55, in the year 1755. While I was looking very intently at it, the good verger gently put a printed description of it into my hands, on a loose quarto sheet. I trust to be forgiven if I read only its first sentence:—Cette grande composition reunit aux richesse de l'art des Phidias et des Bouchardon, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... squadron, he sought shelter in the difficult channels at the mouth of the Vilaine. The English dashed in after him. A partial engagement, which ensued, was unfavorable; and the commander of the French rear-guard, M. St. Andre du Verger, allowed himself to be knocked to pieces by the enemy's guns in order to cover the retreat. The admiral ran ashore in the Bay of Le Croisic and burned his own vessel; seven ships remained blockaded in the Vilaine. M. de Conflans' job, as the sailors called it at the time, was ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Edward with a glowing breast, And some applause is instantly suppressed. Now up the nave of that majestic church A quick uncertain step is heard to lurch. Who is it? no one knows; but by his mien He's the head verger, if ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... Nor did the princes of Lancaster limit their designs to magnificent structures; this college was as well filled as the hospital, for it contained a dean and twelve prebendaries; thirteen vicars choral, three clerks, six choristers and one verger, in all thirty-six persons; and the endowment was adequate to the establishment, for the revenues at the dissolution amounted to 595l. 12s. 11d. Among the various donations to this college, the ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... them. In the choir a practice was going on. Some thirty young clergy were going through the responses and canticles of the new service-book, with an elder man, also in clerical dress, directing them. At the entrance of the southern choir aisle stood the senior verger of the Cathedral in his black gown—open-mouthed and motionless, listening to ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the Cathedral testified that there "had been no superintendence at all comparable to that of Mr. Sydney Smith"; that he had warmed the Library and rebound the books; that he had insured the fabric against fire; and had "brought the New River into the Cathedral by mains." The Verger testified that the monuments had fallen into a dreadful state of decay and disfigurement, and that there were "twenty thousand names scratched on the font"; but that now by Mr. Smith's orders everything had been repaired, ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... "County of Durham," by J.R. Boyle, F.S.A. Thanks are also due to the authorities of the Cathedral for having freely given permission to make drawings and measurements, and to the late Mr Weatherall, chief verger, for his ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... proprietor came from the cellar and offered to guard our car and prepare luncheon, we decided first to examine the church. The innkeeper explained that we had come during a lull in the bombardment, but the silent, deserted place lulled all sense of danger. The verger showed us over the church and we were walking through the ruined nave when suddenly we heard a sound like the shrill ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... that date henceforward not one of the community attended Church. Sunday after Sunday, the bells rang in vain. Mr. Arbroath conducted the service solely for Mrs. Arbroath and for one ancient villager who acted the double part of sexton and verger, and whose duties therefore compelled him to remain attached to the sacred edifice. And the people read their morning prayers in their own houses every Sunday, and never stirred out on that day till after their dinners. In vain did both Mr. and Mrs. Arbroath run up and down the little ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... quadripartite vaulting is of plaster with lines painted red to make it appear like stone. Opposite is a large oak money-chest, and above it on the wall is the figure of a mendicant (see p. 63), carved in wood by a verger in the eighteenth century, hat in hand, as if asking the passer-by to put a coin in the poor-box below. In the south wall is a doorway which led into the treasury. The next bay is largely rebuilt; on the south side is a door and opposite ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... in Drolleries and Raileries in the very edifice itself. He quizzed both the Magnificence and Tawdriness of the Altars, the Images of the Saints, the Rich Framing of the Relics, and all he came across, seeming no more impressed by their solemnity than the Verger Fellow in Westminster Abbey when he shows the Waxwork to a knot of Yokels at sixpence a head. "Surely," I thought, "there must be something wrong in a Faith whose Professors make so light of its ceremonies, and turn Buffoons in the very Temples;" ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Sacrist's rules, and took care that bad characters were not harboured in the church, and that burden-bearers were kept out. We have seen that these duties fell largely into abeyance at certain times. Every Michaelmas Day the Verger appeared before the Dean to give up his wand, and to receive it back if his character was satisfactory. The Verger was bound to be a bachelor, because, said the statute, "having a wife is a troublesome and disturbing affair, and husbands are apt to study the wishes of their wives or their mistresses, ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... class: once upset them in their parrot-like description, and they flounder about in most comical manner. The last time I was here they showed me the tomb of St. Gengulphus, with an effigy of that eminent clergyman—considerably damaged about the nose—in stone, on the top. I appealed to the verger gravely to know if it was considered a good likeness. He was staggered for a moment, and then replied hurriedly that it was. But, thank goodness, here comes the lunch. I feel as ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... To-day we saw the cathedral at Chester; and, far more delightful, saw and heard a certain inimitable verger who took us round. He was full of a certain recondite, far-away humour that did not quite make you laugh at the time, but was somehow laughable to recollect. Moreover, he had so far a just imagination, and could put one in the right humour for seeing an old place, very much as, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fallen over into his own pew. Mr. Sliverstone, who has been listening and smiling meekly, says, 'Not quite so bad as that, not quite so bad!' he admits though, on cross-examination, that he was very near falling upon the verger who was following him up to bolt the door; but adds, that it was his duty as a Christian to fall upon him, if need were, and that he, Mr. Sliverstone, and (possibly the verger too) ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... would have been its fate in our hands. Edward the Confessor's shrine, which is chiefly of wood, likewise abounds in these inscriptions, although this was esteemed the holiest shrine in England, so that pilgrims still come to kneel and kiss it. Our guide, a rubicund verger of cheerful demeanor, said that this was true in a ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... others, of his manor of Portpoole, called Gray's Inn.[111] This was probably in 1371. Similar feoffments-in-trust were made by successive Lords de Grey until 1506, when Edmund, Lord de Grey of Wilton, sold the manor to Hugh Denys, verger of Windsor Castle, and others, ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... his mind: supposing the failure of the church-clock's striking powers should be only temporary; supposing it should recover under some verger's treatment, and strike twelve! ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... was little space left for a visit to the very remarkable Church of St. Ours adjoining the chateau, which, as Viollet le Duc says, has a remarkable and savage beauty of its own. After seeing what is left of the girdle of the Virgin, which the verger thought it very important that we should see, we spent what time we had left in gazing up at the interesting corbeling of the nave and the two hollow, stone ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... sixteenth century have left us. Prior to the Reformation there were sub-deacons who wore alb and maniple, acolytes, the tokens of whose office were a taper staff and small pitcher, ostiaries or doorkeepers corresponding to our verger or clerk, readers, exorcists, rectores chori, etc. This full staff would, of course, be not available for every country church, and for such parishes a clerk and a boy acolyte doubtless sufficed, though in large churches there were representatives of all these various officials. They disappeared ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... waiting in the vestry for the girl's arrival, chatting with his friend the rector. He had arranged for the ceremony to be performed at two-thirty; and the witnesses, a glum verger and a woman engaged in cleaning the church, sat in the pews of the empty building, waiting to earn the guinea which they ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... the time, by Dr. Verger, an intelligent physician of Bellesme, a neighboring town. He details the result of his observations in two letters addressed to the "Journal du Magnetisme,"—one dated January 29, the other February 2, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... Verger and Showman, and accustomed to be high with excursion parties, declines with a silent loftiness to perceive that any suggestion has been ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... affirmed. "You speak too well." I was piqued. She did not answer. She smiled again and I grew angry. In the cathedral she had smiled at the verger's commendation of particularly abominable restorations, and that smile had drawn me toward her, had emboldened me to offer deferential and condemnatory remarks as to the plaster-of-Paris mouldings. You know how one addresses a young lady who is obviously capable of taking care of herself. ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... a great entrance gate, and a strong, oblong keep. The ruins of the Dominican Friary, founded in 1241 by Meyler, of Birmingham, have a thrilling interest of their own, which has its pendant in the story of a Mayence verger, who holds British visitors to the cathedral of that city in breathless rapture as he tells how it is said that a Mayence bishop of eight hundred years ago was said to be of English extraction, or like the Stratford mulberry tree, which is said to be a cutting of a tree said to have grown on ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Macdonald and her two sisters the Misses Reid, Dr. J. C. Davie, Alex. Davie, his brother, Mr. Willoughby, Robert Jenkinson, Albert F. Hicks, John Bagnall, my brother Rowland and myself. Mr. Walter Chambers, as a youth, was organ blower also about this time. The first sexton and verger was William Raby, and the next John Spelde, who had charge of the Quadra Street Cemetery, digging the graves and collecting ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... learned that the Easter Offering for that year was one hundred and twenty-seven pounds, which was made up of the amounts collected from the parishioners by the children, the district visitors and the verger, the collection at a special Service, and donations from the feeble-minded ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... examine, measure and photograph the buildings in their charge; to Mr. J. Oldrid Scott for the loan of drawings of St. Michael's; to Mr. A. Brown, Librarian of the Coventry Public Library for advice and help in making use of the store of topographical material under his care; to Mr. Owen, Verger of St. Michael's and Mr. Chapman, Verger of Holy Trinity, for help in various directions, and to Mr. Wilfred Sims for his energy and care in taking most of the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... anticipated, the result being, that as they waited with many others in the aisle, Denys found herself put into a row where there was but one seat, and she could only look helplessly on while Charlie was marched by the verger, who knew him but did not know Denys, right ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... through us, and a hundred stifled cries, forming one great sob, drowned for an instant the priest's voice. Murdered! The word seemed to sting me personally even more than the others. Had I not been, for one instant, the favourite of the kind old man? It was as though the murderer, Verger, had struck at me too, in my grateful love for the prelate, in my little fame, of which he had now robbed me. I burst into sobs, and the organ, accompanying the prayer for the dead, increased my grief, which became so intense that I fainted. It was from this moment that I was taken with an ardent ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... Berry. "I can smell some of them now. Can you not hear the cheerful din of the iron tires upon the cobbled streets? Can you not see the grateful smile spreading over the beer-sodden features of the cathedral verger, as he pockets the money we pay for the privilege of following an objectionable rabble round an edifice, which we shall remember more for the biting chill of its atmosphere than anything else? And then the musty quiet of the museums, and the miles we shall cover in the picture ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... to your reverence after your religious profession. Besides, your reverence heard of me through the Padre Lector Verger, who is at present our guardian. I received your letter when I was among the Gentiles over three hundred leagues away from any Christian settlement. There is my life and there, I hope, God helping, to die. ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... cardinal and statesman, was born near Piacenza, probably at the village of Fiorenzuola, on the 31st of May 1664. His father was a gardener, and he himself became first connected with the church in the humble position of verger in the cathedral of Piacenza. Having gained the favour of Bishop Barni he took priest's orders, and afterwards accompanied the son of his patron to Rome. During the war of the Spanish succession Alberoni laid the foundation of his political ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... She was the owner of the "Cock and Bottle," a very decent second class inn on the other side of the Close, an inn supposed to have clerical tendencies, which made it quite suitable for a close. The choristers took their beer there, and the landlord was a retired verger. Nearly the whole of one side of a dark passage leading out of the Close towards the High Street belonged to her; and though the passage be narrow and the houses dark, the locality is known to be good for trade. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... entree to it, remain in the room: the Englishmen pass out. The lord chamberlain in a loud voice calls off the name of each person as he appears, so that each comer is, as it were, labeled and ticketed. The observer learns quite as much as if the lord chamberlain was the verger and was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... married in a parish where neither of them was known; he had got a special licence, and there was nobody in the church but the verger and Sangster, and a deaf uncle of Christine's, who thought the whole affair a great bother, and who had looked up a train to catch back home the very moment that Christine should have safely passed out of his ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... almost committing sacrilege. Unfortunately for me, I dislodged some loose mortar, and I heard this rattle noisily into the chamber below. Then I fled as rapidly as I could down the dim alley-way to the silent sunlit Grand' Place. Here I found the verger, and he admitted me to the great old church, in return for a one-franc piece, and brought me a rush-bottom chair to a choice spot before the wondrous Jube, ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... people seemed only to enhance the cool brown emptiness of the church, the rows and rows of empty pews, disengaged prayerbooks and abandoned hassocks. It had the effect of a preposterous misfit. Johnson consulted with a thin-legged, short-skirted verger about the disposition of the party. The officiating clergy appeared distantly in the doorway of the vestry, putting on his surplice, and relapsed into a contemplative cheek-scratching that was manifestly habitual. Before the bride arrived Mr. Polly's sense ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... toi qui produis Les fleurs dont le jardin se pare, Et que, sans toi, toujours avare, Le verger n'aurait ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... shrine of our patron Saint (as he was, until superseded by Saint George in the thirteenth century), and there I indulged in overt acts of superstition violating Article XXII. of 'the Church of England by law established.' A verger, with some colonial tourists, arrived during our devotions, but his voice was lowered out of regard for our feelings. Indeed, both he and the tourists adopted towards us an attitude of respectful curiosity (not altogether unpleasant), which was ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... where two kneeling women with their faces buried in their hands were waiting, whilst the blue skirts of a third protruded from the confessional. Lisa seemed rather put out by the sight of these women, and, addressing a verger who happened to pass along, wearing a black skullcap and dragging his feet over the slabs, she inquired: "Is this Monsieur l'Abbe Roustan's day for ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Lezay de Marnesia, whose poems de la Nature Champetre, and le Bonheur dans les Campagnes, have passed through many editions, and of whom pleasing mention is made in the above Biog. Univers.; M. de Fontaine, author of Le Verger; Masson de Blamont, the translator of Mason's Garden, and Whately's Observations; Francois Rosier; Bertholan, the friend ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... wedding, with choral service, was in course of celebration. Sally begged Amelius to take her in to see it. They tried the front entrance, and found it impossible to get through the crowd. A side entrance, and a fee to a verger, succeeded better. They obtained space enough to stand on, with a view of ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... his father went on. "And here again. Paupers' Burial Fund, a loss; enter it as such. Christmas Gift to Verger and Sexton, an absolute loss—you get nothing in return. Widows' Mite, Fines inflicted in Sunday School, etc., these are profit; write them down as such. By this method, you see, in ordinary business we can tell exactly where we stand: anything ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... on parade, and, though on their knees, never forgot their epaulets or their quarters of nobility. This mixture of religion and worldly pride seems incongruous at first; but have we not at church at home similar relics of feudal ceremony?—the verger with the silver mace who precedes the vicar to the desk; the two chaplains of my Lord Archbishop, who bow over his Grace as he enters the communion-table gate; even poor John, who follows my Lady with a coroneted prayer-book, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for the ring. R'c'lect it'll be on the top of my right-hand little finger, and just be careful how you draw it off, because I shall have the Verger's fees ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... you to," cried Wyant. "But not here," he added, hearing the clank of the verger's keys. "It is growing dark, and we shall be turned out in ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... found with the help of Mrs. Haworth. But when this woman had been asked—her name was Bent, and she was a verger's wife—to provide a little supper for two gentlemen, she had demurred, and said it was impossible. Then, at last, she had volunteered to cook two chops and boil some potatoes. But she had explained that nothing further must be expected of her; she was not used to ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... arrivals every minute, and Guest gazed anxiously now toward the door, but the arrivals were all female; and save that the clerk or verger was arranging cushions and books up by the communion table, he was alone, and the centre upon which ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... Dieu, Belle Isle, Fort du Pilier, Mindin, Ville Martin; Quiberon, with Fort Penthievre; L'Orient, with its harbor defences; Fort Cigogne; Brest, with its harbor defences; St. Malo, with Forts Cezembre, La Canchee, L'Anse du Verger, and Des Rimains; Cherbourg, with its defensive forts and batteries; Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk. Cherbourg, Brest, and Rochefort, are great naval depots; and Havre, Nantes, and Bordeaux, the principal commercial ports. Many of the works above ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... newly wedded pair had received the exhortation, Aristide, darting to the altar-rail, caught Jean up in his arms, and, to the consternation of the officiating clergy, the verger, and Anne's conventional friends, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... with candles. You have to grope your way toward the altar. Unless you strain your eyes, or lamps are burning, side chapels pass unnoticed. If you are looking for inscriptions or want to admire the old master's picture, with which every church claims to be endowed, you must get the verger with his taper. Altars are gaudily decorated and statues bejeweled and be (artificial) flowered in Hispano-Italian fashion. The mairie, reconstructed from an ancient palace or castle, was more interesting. Beside the mairie a medieval square tower, ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... "En co verger troveroums les flurs Des queus issunt les doux odours (swote smel) Les herbes ausi pur medicine La flur de Rose, la flur de Liz (lilie) Liz vaut per ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... country church draws as many gazers as a blazing star; no sooner he comes into the cathedral, but a train of whispers runs buzzing round the congregation in a moment: Who is he? Whence comes he? Do you know him? Then I, Sir, tips me the verger with half-a-crown; he pockets the simony, and inducts me into the best pew in the church; I pull out my snuff-box, turn myself round, bow to the bishop, or the dean, if he be the commanding officer, single ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... looking, Mother, You can prig something out of the Money-box." But the vigilant Verger has his eye on them. Such is the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... facilities are afforded by a staircase commencing at the south-west Transept leading to the western Tower; and by another leading from the north Transept; but permission must be obtained, for which an application should be made to the Verger in attendance. The ascent, though tedious, is not dangerous, if due caution be used. Many parts will be found worthy of attention; the timber work of the Octagon is a very curious piece of carpentry executed in English oak, and very massive. A fine view of the interior may be had by standing ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... was chiming for the evensong, and Sir Philip passed in. He was recognised by an old verger, who, with a low bow, preceded him ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... stillness of their desire to preserve this safety which was theirs only for a little while. Their dull clothes mixed with the shadows, the old oak, the worn stone, and the voice of the organ was like the voice of multitudes of sad souls. Very soon the music ceased with a kind of sob and the verger, with his skirts flapping round his feet, came to warn those isolated human creatures that they must ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... lack of people of property who would give them what they needed, offering for his part to assist them to the extent of his ability; and, in fact, he wrote in relation to the subject to Father du Verger, [80] who welcomed with joy the undertaking, and, in accordance with the recommendation of Sieur Houeel, communicated it to some of his brethren, who, burning with charity, offered themselves freely ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... attended to every word of the service, and was as good as an angel. When the procession had filed out and the last strain of the great organ had rumbled into silence, we went on a tour through the cathedral, a heterogeneous band, headed by a conscientious old verger who did his best to enlighten us, and succeeded in virtually spoiling ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... there the bells in the church tower began ringing and the pastor, the sexton, and the verger came out from the vestry and took their places at the head of ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... seemed a dream. The hurried tramp to the main road in a torrent of pouring rain: the long drive in the stuffy chaise, the arrival just in time for the brief—very brief—ceremony in the dark church, with the clergyman in a plain black gown muttering unintelligible words, and the local verger and the church cleaner acting as the witnesses to ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... that they can hardly conceive of a central power, worthy of the name of a government, standing by and witnessing disorders or failures of justice in any place within its borders, without stepping in to set matters right, no matter what the Constitution may say. They remind me often of an old verger in Westminster Abbey during the American civil war who told me that "he always knew a government without a head couldn't last." Permanence and peace were in his mind inseparably linked with kingship. That even Mr. Dicey has not been able to escape this influence appears ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... end of the Transept, and make the Screen to the Western Side of the organ." They also ordered "the beam in the choir to be removed, the North and South Porches to be taken down, the south door near the Verger's house stopped up, and another opened near the Chapter Vestry, to open out the Chapel in the great North and South Transepts, and to convert the north-east transept into a morning chapel, to remove certain monuments in consequence of alterations in St. Mary's Chapel, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... leva, Sun cors vesti e para, Enz un verger s'entra, Cink flurettes y truva, Un chapelet fet en a De rose flurie; Pur Deu, trahez vus en la ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... been wandering about the neighbouring Cathedral, and had seen the tomb of Richard Watts, with the effigy of worthy Master Richard starting out of it like a ship's figure-head; and I had felt that I could do no less, as I gave the Verger his fee, than inquire the way to Watts's Charity. The way being very short and very plain, I had come prosperously to the inscription and ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... "A verger, I suppose," thought Wingfold.—"Seriously, Mrs. Ramshorn, that poor little atom of a creature is the wisest man I ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... ridiculously beyond the ken of a verger, when Doris went to church on Sunday morning, she ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... accompany us that they overflowed into the free seats in the aisle, where I had a full view of them from above. These benches are long, and I was sorry to see the girls planting themselves fast at the outer end, and making themselves square, so as to hinder any one else from getting in, till the verger came and spoke to them, when Charley giggled offensively; and even then they did not make room, but forced the people to squeeze past. Isa could not help herself, not being the outermost; but she was much distressed, and does not shelter herself under Charley's plea that it was ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... drawer, was very glad to return it and get back his ten pounds. No burst of applause greeted the works of Jane Austen like that which greeted the far inferior works of Miss Burney. Crevit occulto velut arbor oevo fama. A few years ago, the verger of Winchester cathedral asked a visitor who desired to be shown her tomb, "what there was so particular about that lady that so many people wanted to see where she was buried?" Nevertheless, she lived to feel that "her own dear children" ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... seemed empty but for sound and color, there lingered among its shadows a few persons who loved it well. There were priests and a few worshipers. There was also Father Varennes, the Verger, and far away in one of the small chapels opening from the apse in the eastern end good Mother Meraut was down upon her knees, not praying as you might suppose, but scrubbing the stone floor. Mother Meraut was a wise woman; ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Monday morning, when they are swept before and after the service; but as one is never quite certain of finding them open, it is, perhaps, best to take them after service on the Sunday. If you show a real interest in the church, you will find the pew-opener or verger pleased to let you see everything, not only the monuments and the carvings in the church, but also the treasures of the vestry, in which are preserved many interesting things—old maps, portraits, old deeds and gifts, old charities—now all clean swept away by the Charity ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... also due to the Very Rev. the Dean, the Rev. E. J. Nash, Mr. George Payne, F.S.A., and Mr. S. S. Brister, for kindnesses and helpful suggestions, as also to the head-verger, Mr. Miles, who, having been connected with the fabric for more than half a century, has a personal knowledge of its ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... verger prevented my chipping off a bit of the high altar as a memento the last time I was over. You English are so beastly conservative. Not that the Bishop had ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... not of the Roman Church, possessing an air of oddity, and therefore of freshness, which it certainly had not to those of his own day. This was the curious fashion of quete or collection at church—not by a commonplace verger, or by respectable churchwardens and sidesmen, but by the prettiest girl whom the cure could pitch upon, dressed in her best, and lavishing smiles upon the congregation to induce them to give as lavishly, and to enable her to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... would be well for him to get over those last hours. Thus he found himself in Barchester at eleven o'clock, with nothing on his hands to do; and, having nothing else to do, he went to church. There was a full service at the cathedral, and as the verger marshalled him up to one of the empty stalls, a little spare old man was beginning to chant the Litany. "I did not mean to fall in for all this," said Crosbie, to himself, as he settled himself with his arms on the cushion. But the peculiar ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... but for some reason or another he was refused admission, a slight which accounts in some measure for the continued antipathy he displayed during his life towards the Jesuits. At Louvain, too, he was associated very closely with a brilliant young French student, John du Verger de Hauranne (1581-1643), better known as the Abbot of St. Cyran, whom he accompanied to Paris and afterwards to Bayonne, where both lived for almost twelve years. During these years of intimate friendship they had many opportunities of discussing the condition and prospects of the Catholic ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... or Cathedral is dedicated to St. Peter, and the Parish Church to St. John. The Head Verger of the Cathedral until recently had charge of both clocks, and St. John's Clock was always kept slightly faster than the Cathedral Clock. Canon Jones, when Vicar of St. John's, one day met the late Verger, (Mr. H. Plowman, Senr.) and asked him why St John's Clock was always faster than the ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack
... up at the rafters, and I saw a sort o' picture there, and I said, "Ullo—they've been advertising Pears' Soap here, or something." But when I looked again, it was only an old fresco. I was so little interested I walked out without tipping the Verger! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various |
