So the clergy and choir came to meet us at the door, then turned and moved up the Cathedral nave chanting in solemn procession, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life saith the Lord’. But meanwhile there was a dreadful struggle at the steps leading up from the Cloisters to the door. The bearers were quite unequal to the task and the coffin seemed crushingly heavy. There was a stamping and a scuffling, a mass of struggling men swaying to and fro, pushing and writhing and wrestling while the coffin sank and rose and sank again. Once or twice I thought the whole mass of men must have been down together with the coffin atop of them and some one killed or maimed at least... At last by a wild effort and tremendous heave the ponderous coffin was borne up the steps and through the door into the Cathedral where the choristers, quite unconscious of the scene and the fearful struggle going on behind, were singing up the nave like a company of angels.... The Psalm was sung nicely to a very beautiful chant. The Dean had the gout and could not appear, so Canon Wood read the lesson well and impressively in a sonorous voice. The Grave Service was intoned by the Sacristan Mr. Raisin and sung by the choir, standing on the planking round the vault whilst a crowd of people looked in through the cloister windows. It must have been an expensive funeral. Everyone had hatbands down to the Choristers who wore them round their college caps. And there was a heavy fee to the Choir for the Choral service. << less