Chapter XI

A pleasant road--Memories--Shortening of names--Health-drinking--A
miller and his mill--A rail-less town--Changed times and changed
ways--An Elizabethan church clock--A curious coincidence--Old
superstitions--Satire in carving--“The Monks of Old.”

From Bourn we decided to drive to Sleaford, an easy day’s stage of eighteen miles, baiting half-way at Falkingham. Upon asking the ostler about the road, it struck us as curious to hear him remark that it was a hilly one; so accustomed had we become to the level roads of the Fens that for the moment we had forgotten that Lincolnshire is a county of heaths, hills, and waving woods as well as of fens, dykes, and sluggish streams.

The aspect of the country we passed through that morning had completely changed from that of yesterday; it was pleasantly undulating, and even the brake was brought into requisition once or twice, for the first time since we left London. Hedges again resumed their sway, and we realised their tangled beauties all the more for our recent absence from them; sturdy oaks and rounded elms took the place of the silvery flickering willows and of the tall thin poplars, and smooth-turfed meadows that of the coarse-grassed marsh-lands. The general forms and outlines of the country were more familiar, but it seemed a little wanting in colour after the rich tints of the lowlands; by contrast it all appeared too green: green fields, green trees, green crops, for these, with the winding road, chiefly composed the prospect. Moreover, we missed the constant and enlivening accompaniment of water that we had become so accustomed to, with its soft, silvery gleaming under cloud and its cheerful glittering under sun. Water is to the landscape what the eye is to the human face; it gives it the charm of expression and vivacity. At first, also, our visions seemed a little cramped after the wide and unimpeded prospects of the Fens; and the landscape struck us as almost commonplace compared with that we had so lately passed through, which almost deserved the epithet of quaint, at least to non-Dutch eyes. There was no special feature in the present scenery beyond its leafy loveliness. Truly it might be called typically English, but there was nothing to show that it belonged to any particular portion of England--no distant peep of downs, or hills, or moors, that seems so little, but which to the experienced traveller means so much, as by the character and contour of distant hill, or moor, or down he can tell fairly well whether he be in the north or south, the east or west, and may even shrewdly guess the very county he is traversing.

[Sidenote: _A PASTORAL LAND_]

It was, however, a lovely country, full of pastoral peacefulness, sunshine, and grateful sylvan shadiness, lovely yet lonely--a loneliness that aroused within us a feeling akin to melancholy: it may have been our mood that saw it so that day, and that the fault lay in ourselves and not in the landscape. Does not the poet say, “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought”? So may not the sweetest scenery, in certain minds, and under certain conditions, arouse a sentiment of sadness? There is a peacefulness that is restful beyond words, especially to the town-wearied brain; but there is also a peacefulness so deep as to become actually oppressive. However, all the feelings of loneliness and melancholy vanished, like the mist before the sun, at the sight of an old-fashioned windmill painted a cheerful white and picturesquely situated at the top of a knoll by the side of our road, its great sails whirling round and round with a mighty sweep and a swishing sound as they rushed through the air in their never-completed journey. This busy mill gave just the touch of needful life to the prospect; we hailed it as we would have hailed an old friend, and at once our spirits rose to a gleesome point. What trifles may thus suddenly change the current of thought and feeling! It may even be so small a matter as the scent of a wild flower, or the sound of the wind in the trees, recalling past days and far-away scenes. So this old mill brought up before us a rush of pleasant memories, the poetry of many a rural ramble, of chats with merry meal-covered millers, for millers I have ever found to be the merriest of men, and never yet have I come upon a crusty one. All those to whom I have talked, and they have not been few, without exception appeared to take a rosy view of life, not even grumbling with cause. I wish I knew the miller’s secret of happiness!

[Sidenote: _A DOUBTFUL PLEASURE_]

It was whilst watching the hurtling sails of the creaking mill that it occurred to us why the country seemed so dull that day; it was the absence of movement, we had the road all to ourselves. There was no flowing river or running stream, and the cattle in the fields were lazy and placid, seemingly as immovable as those in pictures; not even troubling to whisk their tails at real or imaginary flies. Even the birds appeared too indolent to fly; at least they were strangely invisible. An air of solemn repose pervaded the whole countryside until that cheery windmill came into view. It was curious that at the moment the only life in the landscape should be given to it by a building! for the mind pictures a building as a substantial thing not given to any movement.

Shortly after this we reached the pretty and picturesquely situated village of Aslackby--shortened to Asby by a native of whom we asked its name--even the rustic has come into line with the late nineteenth century, so far as not to waste breath or words. The straggling village was situated in a wooded hollow a little below our road; its ancient church and cottages, half drowned in foliage, formed a charming picture. The church looked interesting, but we found the door carefully locked, and not feeling just then our archæological and antiquarian zeal sufficient to induce us to go a-clerk-hunting, a doubtful joy at the best, we quietly, and, I fear, unregretfully, resumed our seats in the dog-cart, for the soft sunshine and sweet air were grateful to our senses, and it pleased us to be out in the open.

Just beyond Aslackby a wayside inn ycleped “The Robin Hood” invited us with the following lines on its sign-board, though unavailingly, to stop and refresh ourselves there:--

Gentlemen if you think good,
Step in and drink with Robin Hood:
If Robin Hood abroad is gone,
Pray take a glass with Little John.

Noting us stop to take down the inscription, and possibly mistaking our motive, the familiar incident once more took place--a beery-looking passer-by approached us and remarked that he could recommend the tap. We thanked him for his kindness, and jokingly responded that we did not happen to be thirsty just then, but we would bear in mind his recommendation should we ever again be in the neighbourhood. “Not thirsty on such a day as this,” he exclaimed with an air of surprise; “why, I be as thirsty as a fish”; but we did not rise to the occasion, and as we drove away the man glanced reproachfully after us, then he disappeared within the building. Perhaps we might have parted with the customary twopence, for the man was civil-mannered, but why should the wanderer by road in England be so frequently expected to have his health drunk by utter strangers? The number of twopences I have already expended for this purpose since I first started my driving tours must be considerable!

Some way farther on our road we chanced upon still another ancient wooden mill busily at work like the former one. It was a picturesque mill of a primitive type that is fast disappearing from the land; the whole structure being supported on a great central post that acts as a pivot, and is bodily turned on this by a long projecting beam acting as a lever, so that the sails can be made to face the wind from whichever quarter it may come; but this arrangement, of course, needs constant watchfulness.

[Sidenote: _IN A WINDMILL_]

We pulled up here in order to make a sketch of the old mill, that looked almost too quaint and picturesque to be real, giving one a sort of impression that it must have come out of some painting, an artist’s ideal realised. The worthy miller watched our proceeding with manifest interest from his doorway above, and when we had finished he asked us if we would care to take a glance inside. We did care, and likewise were not averse to have the opportunity of a chat so that we might gather his view of the world and of things in general, for naturally everybody sees the former from his own centre, and through his own glasses. We had to mount a number of rickety steps that communicated with the creaking mill above which oscillated unpleasantly, for the sails were spinning round apace before the breeze, causing the ancient structure to tremble and its timbers to groan like those of a ship in a gale; indeed, when we had safely surmounted the flight of shaking steps we felt that we sadly needed our “sea-legs” to stand at all, and the latter are not always immediately at command when cruising on land. “She’s running a bit free to-day,” exclaimed the miller, smiling and all gray-white with dusty meal, “and she’s not so young as she were by a couple of centuries or so, but she’s quite safe though she do rock and rattle a bit. But Lor’ bless you, I likes to hear her talk; it’s company like, for it’s lonely work up here by oneself all day at times.” It was not only that the ancient mill moved and shook so, but the floor was uneven as well, nor was there overmuch elbow-room to allow a margin for unsteadiness, and it would have been awkward to have been caught by any of the whirring wheels; moreover the noise was confusing and the light seemed dim for the moment after the bright sunshine without. But we soon got used to the new condition of things and our novel and unstable surroundings.

“I wonder she has never been blown right over in a storm during all those years,” I said, “for she is only supported on a single post, though certainly it is a big one.” In truth the mill shook so much in the comparatively steady breeze that it seemed to us a heavy storm would easily have laid her low. Mills, like ships, are always “she’s,” I have observed, though how a man-of-war can be a “she” has always puzzled me. “Well, she may be only supported on one post, but that is of solid heart of oak, as whole and strong to-day as when first put up; not worm-eaten a bit. There’s an old saying you may have heard, ‘there’s nothing like leather’; it ought to be, I thinks, by rights, ‘there’s nothing like oak.’ She do rock though when it blows hard, but I’m used to it; it’s her nature, and she’ll last

[Sidenote: _A CHAT WITH A MILLER_]

my life. Oh yes, she’s very old-fashioned and slow, but for all that she can grind corn better nor your modern mills, in spite of what people talk. We grinds the wheat and makes honest meal; the modern mills with their rollers make simply flour, which is not half as wholesome or nourishing. Wheat-meal and flour are not the same, though they both make bread: wheat-meal possesses nourishing qualities that ordinary flour does not.” So one drives about country and learns!

The miller looked an oldish man, but his face and beard (I think he had a beard, but my memory may be at fault) were white from dusty meal, and may have made him appear older than he really was. Anyhow, we ventured to ask him if he thought times had altered for the better or for the worse since he was young. Like the rest of the world, merry miller though he was, he complained of the severe competition that had cut down profits to a minimum, whilst the work was harder. In “the good old days” of milling, when he began the trade, the price for grinding corn used to be 1s. a strike or 8s. a quarter for wheat, and 8d. a strike or 5s. 4d. a quarter for barley; now the charge is 5s. 4d. a quarter for wheat, and 2s. 6d. a quarter for barley. “Moreover, nowadays, though we gets less money for the work, we have to fetch the corn and take the meal back again; whereas in past times the corn was carted to the mill, and taken away when ground.” So that, we were given to understand, besides the lowering of prices there was the cost of cartage to and fro to be taken into consideration. It is the same familiar story of a harder struggle to earn a living, entailing besides a lessened leisure. Some one has to suffer for the benefit of cheap production, and the small man suffers most.

Bidding good-bye to our worthy miller, who, in spite of altered times, had a contented look that a millionaire well might envy, we remounted the dogcart and soon reached the sleepy, little, and erst market town of Falkingham--a town unknown to Bradshaw, because it has been left out in the cold by the railway, but none the less picturesque on that account! Here the road widened out into a large triangle, the base being at the end farthest away from us; this formed the old market-place, a pleasant open space surrounded by quaint and ancient houses and shops. One of these houses especially interested us, a substantial stone building with mullioned windows, set slightly back from the roadway and approached between two massive pillars surmounted by round stone balls. It was not perhaps actually picturesque, but it had such a charming air of quiet dignity, and looked so historical in a mild manner, as to make the modern villa seem a trumpery affair. It was a house that struck you as having been built originally for the owner to live in and to enjoy, in contradistinction to which the “desirable residence” of to-day always seems to me to be built to sell. The stones of this old house were delightfully toned into a series of delicate grays, enlivened here and there by splashes of gold and silver lichen. What a difference there is between the wealth of colourful hues of a time-tinted country building and the begrimed appearance of a smoke-stained London dwelling. Age adds beauty to the one; it adds but a depressing gloom to the other.

[Sidenote: _PRE-RAILWAY TRAVELLERS_]

Right in front of us, at the top of the market-place, stood a fine example of an old coaching inn--a long red-brick structure whose ruddy front showed in pleasant contrast with the gray stone buildings around of earlier date: a plain but comfortable-looking hostelry, its many windows gleaming cheerfully in the sunshine, and having in the centre under the eaves of its roof a reminder of the past in the shape of a sun-dial with a legend upon it; but what that legend was we could not make out, for time and weather had rendered it indistinct. In our mind’s eye we pictured to ourselves the outside travellers by the arriving coaches consulting it, and then pulling their cumbersome “verge” watches out of their fobs to see if they were correct. Sun-dials, besides being picturesque, were of real utility in the days when watches and clocks could not always be relied upon to tell the right time.

Of old, Falkingham was on the high turnpike road from London to Lincoln, therefore the traffic passing through the little town in the coaching age must have been considerable, and the place must have presented a very different aspect then from the one of slumberous tranquillity it now possesses. Our inn, “The Greyhound” to wit, I find duly recorded in my copy of _Paterson_ as supplying post-horses. I well remember my grandfather expatiating upon the pleasures of a driving tour in his young days when he left home with his travelling carriage packed, but without horses, as he posted from town to town and place to place, without the shadow of anxiety about the “cattle,” or having any need to consider whether this or that stage was too long. It was expensive travelling doubtless, but delightfully luxurious and free from care, except for the bogey of the highwayman; but every pleasure has its shadow! The Greyhound has manifestly been but little altered since the last coach pulled up there, beyond that the great arched entranceway in the centre has been glazed and converted into a hall, which may or may not be an improvement: personally, for tradition’s sake, I look jealously upon any modifications in the economy of these ancient coaching houses; but one cannot keep the hand of Time back just for the sake of tradition or the picturesque.

Having refreshed ourselves very satisfactorily here, our roast beef being washed down with a foaming tankard of genuine home-brewed ale, we set out to have a quiet look at the clean past-time town, which, as a matter of fact, we could take in at a glance, for it was all gathered round its large old market-square, though market-triangle would be a more correct term. Falkingham seems never to have known the hand of the modern builder, and has therefore happily preserved its charming old-world look, thanks doubtless in a great measure, if not wholly, to the fact of the railway having left it stranded high and dry out of the traveller’s beat.

Our stroll round the square did not take long:

[Sidenote: _A RAIL-LESS TOWN_]

the only inhabitants we saw were an old gaffer talking across a garden wall to a woman who stood in her doorway listlessly listening to him; we were much amused to hear the former suddenly exclaim, just as we passed by, “Why, bless my soul, I’ve been over half an hour here; I must go now and have a chat with old Mother Dash.” It suggested to us that his life was mostly composed of gossiping, and that time was not such a priceless commodity at Falkingham as in most places. Here at least the hurry and rush, the stress and striving of the nineteenth century appear not to have penetrated, and humanity rusts rather than wears away. Can this be due to the mere absence of the railway, I wonder? Certainly where the iron horse does not penetrate, life seems to be lived at a lower pressure than elsewhere. A deep sense of repose hung over the whole place, a peacefulness that could possibly be felt; for a town it was unnaturally--painfully I might almost say--silent: in the heart of the country we could not have found a greater tranquillity!

Having “done” the town and having added a few more pencil notes to our sketch-book, on glancing around we suddenly espied the church half hidden away in a corner to the left of our inn that somehow we had hitherto overlooked. Approaching the aged fane we noticed a great clockface on the weather-worn and hoary tower with a solitary wooden hand thereon pointing aimlessly down to six; it was then a few minutes to one, for we had lunched early, having started in the morning “betimes,” to once again employ Mr. Pepys’s favourite expression. For when driving across country it is well to have a long day before one; even then the whole day was sometimes too short!

Affixed to the porch of the church we observed the following notice, that plainly tells its own tale of changed times and changed ways, and of an enlightened, up-to-date ecclesiasticism:--

Cyclists Welcomed
In Cycling Dress.

Entering the building we heard a peculiar creaking noise, apparently proceeding from the tower above, that was in singular contrast with the otherwise profound stillness of the interior. This puzzled us, and, discovering a circular stone stairway that led up the tower, we promptly ascended it to solve the mystery. This eventually--after climbing over one hundred steps (we counted them)--took us into a small chamber, where we found the sexton winding up an ancient clock of curious design, an interesting specimen of medieval handicraft. I sincerely trust that no agent from South Kensington or other museum, or any emissary from Wardour Street, will unearth this antique “time-teller,” or if unhappily they do, I trust that they will not be permitted to possess it, even though they promise a brand new clock in its place! I prefer to see such curiosities in their rightful positions, where they ought to remain their natural life undisturbed, and where alone they are in harmony with their surroundings. Many an ancient

[Sidenote: _AN ELIZABETHAN CLOCK_]

helmet, that once hung over the recumbent effigy of its former knightly owner in the quiet village church, has been basely filched away to add to the collector’s store, where they may only be seen by the favoured few, and why should this be? The queer old clock was being wound up, not by a key, but by a sort of miniature windlass. The works were of wrought iron, all hammered and cut by hand, for machinery manifestly had no part in their construction; perhaps that is why they have lasted so long! From our knowledge of such things, we concluded that this clock could not have been of later date than Elizabeth’s time; how much earlier, if any, it would be hard to say. Unless, however, we are greatly mistaken, it has outlived three centuries, and has probably marked the hours all those long years, more or less correctly, whilst the cunning hands that designed and constructed it are forgotten dust. Here the inevitable moral should follow, but I refrain. This reminds me that I once gave my thirteen-year-old daughter an improving, well-intentioned book, and in due course I asked her how she liked it: “Well, dada,” she replied, quite innocently, “when you’ve skipped all the goody bits there’s nothing left!” A brass plate attached to the clock informed us that

W. Foster
Repaired this Clock
Anno Domini
1816.

We understood that, so far as the sexton knew, it had not been repaired since that date. Then we called the sexton’s attention to the fact that the face of the clock had but one hand, and that was loose and moved to and fro in the wind as helplessly as a weather-vane: “Yes,” he replied with a grin, “I had to pull the other hand off; it caught in the wind so as to slow the clock, and when it blew hard sometimes it stopped her going altogether. I left the other hand on, as being loose it could do no harm”! This sounded a delightfully primitive way out of a mechanical difficulty; quite a stroke of rural genius! At the same time it appeared to us strangely inconsistent and illogical to have a clock going that did not show the time. “Lor’ bless you, sir,” responded he, “the old clock strikes the hours right enough, and that’s all the folk want to know. Why, if the hands were going they’d never look up at ’em. Not they.” What a lotus-eating land this, we thought, where people only care to know the hours, and take no thought of the intervals! Just then the sexton began to toll a loud bell vigorously. In reply to our query for the reason of this, he explained that it was the custom there to ring the bell every morning at eight o’clock, and again at one o’clock, “and it’s one o’clock now, and so I’m ringing of it. I don’t rightly know how old the custom be, but the bell be very useful, as it lets the people at work in the fields around know the time. We calls this the dinner bell. You see it carries farther than the sound of the clock striking.”

We then ventured to admire the old tower, a fine specimen of Perpendicular masonry, possessing some much-weathered, curious but rather coarse gargoyles outside. The sexton also admired it: “It certainly be a fine tower; there’s a wonderfully good view of the country round from the top. I allus goes up there when the hounds be out to see the run. I know no other tower in the district from which you can see so far. Now, if them old builders had only,” etc., etc. I am afraid the sexton and ourselves regarded the old tower from two very dissimilar standpoints.

[Sidenote: _OUT OF THE BEATEN TRACK_]

Descending into the body of the church, we noticed a doorway in the south wall, and caught a peep of some stone steps beyond, leading, we were informed, to a chamber over the porch formerly used as a schoolroom, “now we only keep rubbish in it, odd tiles, broken bits of carvings, and the like. You can go up if you care to, but it be rare and dusty.” We did care to go up. Indeed, in the fondness of our heart for such things we even dared to hope that perchance we might, to use an expressive term much favoured by antiquaries, come upon “a find” there. Here, we reasoned, is a fine and ancient church, well out of the beaten track of travel. The present interior suggested that it had once been richly adorned; presumably it had suffered, more or less, the fate of other ornate churches during the Commonwealth. Who can tell but that some quaint relic of its former beauty may not be stowed away up there amongst the rubbish? The very mention of “odd tiles” sounded encouraging, only supposing that there happened to be some quaint medieval ones amongst the number! So, full of pleasant anticipation, we eagerly ascended the steep stone steps, worn both very concave and slippery with the tread of generations departed. We reached a large parvise, or priest’s chamber, provided with a fireplace; the uneven floor was strewn with bits of broken tiles, worm-eaten wood, plaster, bricks, etc. The chamber was exceedingly dusty and cobwebby, but we at once enthusiastically began to search amongst the litter for anything of interest, but, alas! discovered nothing noteworthy; the tiles were modern. The sexton was right after all--it was full of rubbish! So, disappointed and almost as white as a miller, we descended the slippery steps. Then as the sexton--there was no clerk, he informed us--seemed in a chatty mood, we asked him if he knew of any curious inscription in the churchyard. “Well, I think I can show you one that will interest you,” he replied, whereupon he led the way outside and we followed. Coming to an old tombstone he remarked, “Now, I call this a funny one; it is to a man and his wife who both died in the same year, and were both exactly the same age to a day when they died.” Then he rubbed the ancient stone over with his hand, that we might better read what was written thereon, which I copied as follows:--

To
The Memory of
JOHN BLAND
Who Died March 25th, 1797,
Aged 75 Years, 6 Weeks, and 4 Days.

* * * * *

Also of
JANE, his Widow
Who Died May 11th, 1797,
Aged 75 Years, 6 Weeks, and 4 Days.

[Sidenote: _A FORTUNATE COMBINATION_]

Provided the inscription records facts, it certainly is a curious coincidence; still quite a possible one.

Returning to our inn, we ordered the horses to be “put to,” and whilst this was being done, we had a chat with the landlord, from whom we learnt that he both brewed his own ale and grew his own barley to brew it with. It is the pleasant fate of some of these remote old coaching hostelries in their old age to become half hotel and half farmhouse, and a more fortunate combination for the present-day traveller there could not be. By this arrangement the old buildings are preserved and cared for in a manner that diminished custom would hardly permit were they to remain purely as inns; nor does the providing suffer from the blending of uses, the produce of the farm being at command, which means, or should mean, fresh vegetables, milk, butter, and eggs. In the present case it further meant the rare luxury of home-brewed ale from home-grown grain, and a quart of such, does not Shakespeare say, “is a dish for a king”?

We drove on now through a pretty and well-wooded country, our road winding in and out thereof in the most enticing manner: every now and then we caught refreshing peeps of a far-away distance, faintly blue, out from which came to us a fragrant breeze, cool, sweet, and soothing. In driving across country it is not only the prospect that changes but the air also, and, as the eye delights in the change of scene, so the lungs rejoice in the change of climate. The landscape all around had a delightfully fresh and smiling look; it was intensely pastoral and peaceful, and over all there brooded a sense of deep contentment and repose. Old time-mellowed farmsteads and quiet cottage homes were dotted about, from which uprose circling films of blue-gray smoke, agreeably suggestive of human occupancy. “How English it all looked,” we exclaimed, and these five words fitly describe the scenery. In that sentence pages of word-painting are condensed!

As we proceeded above the woods to the left and the right of us rose two tall tapering spires, belonging respectively--at least so we made out from our map--to the hamlets of Walcot and Treckingham. These spires reminded us what splendid churches some of the small Lincolnshire villages possess; there they stand in remote country districts often hastening to decay, with no one to admire them. The ancient architects who

Built the soaring spires
That sing their soul in stone,

seem to have built these songs in vain: for what avails a poem that no one prizes? The Lincolnshire rustic is made of stern stuff, he is honest, hardy, civil, manly, independent (at least that is the opinion I have formed of him), but he is not a bit poetical, and a good deal of a Puritan: I fancy, if I have read him aright, he would as soon worship in a barn as in a church; indeed, I think he would prefer to do so if he had his own way, as being more homelike. A clergyman I met on the journey and who confided in me said, “To get on in Lincolnshire, before all things it is necessary to believe in game, and not to trouble too much about

[Sidenote: _STRANGE REVELATIONS_]

the Catholic faith.” He said this in a joking manner truly, but I could see that he jested in earnest: he further assured me as a positive fact that both devil-worship and a belief in witchcraft existed in the county. He said, “I could tell you many strange things of my rural experiences,” and he did--how the devil is supposed to haunt the churchyards in the shape of a toad, and how witchcraft is practised, etc. “You may well look astonished,” he exclaimed, “at what I tell you, but these things are so; they have come under my notice, and I speak advisedly from personal knowledge.”

Presently we reached the village of Osbournby; here the church looked interesting, so we stopped in order to take a glance inside, and were well rewarded for our trouble by discovering a number of very fine and quaintly-carved medieval bench-ends in an excellent state of preservation. Medieval carvings have generally a story to tell, though being without words some people are forgetful of the fact, deeming them merely ornamental features, and so miss the carver’s chief aim because they do not look for it; sometimes, by way of relief, they have a joke to make, now and then they are keenly sarcastic: but the stories--not the jokes--mostly need time to elucidate, for they often mean more than meets the eye at a hurried glance; moreover they have to be read in the spirit of the age that produced them. One of the bench-end carvings at Osbournby that is particularly noticeable represents a cunning-looking fox standing up in a pulpit preaching to a silly-looking congregation of geese, a favourite subject by the way with the monkish sculptors, and a telling contemporary satire on the priesthood by those who ought to know it best. It is remarkable that this peculiar subject should have been so popular, for I have met with it frequently; there is a good example of the same on one of the miserere seats in St. David’s Cathedral. What does it signify?

Still more curious does this strange satire seem when we remember that in the dark ages such carvings were the poor man’s only literature, for then even reading was a polite art confined to the learned few, and spelling was in its infancy. One finds it difficult to conjecture why the Church allowed such ridicule of its religious preaching to be thus boldly proclaimed, so that even the unlettered many could hardly fail to comprehend its meaning, for in this case the story meets the eye at once and was manifestly intended to do so.

If we may judge them solely by their carvings the monks of old, at a certain period, appear to have been craftsmen clever beyond cavil, full of quaint conceits, not over refined, often sarcastic, sometimes severely so, but curiously broad in their selection of subjects for illustration. Of course they carved religious subjects as in duty bound, and with painstaking care, but these all look stiff and mechanical, forced and not spontaneous, possibly because they had to work more or less in a traditional groove, and consequently there was no scope for originality; but in their less serious

[Sidenote: _A MEDIEVAL LEECH_]

moments, and these seemed many, when the mood inclined them they wrought carvings that were imbued with life; and laughed, or grinned, or joked in stone or wood to their heart’s content; then the whole soul of the craftsman entered into his work--and the inanimate matter lived, breathed, and struggled. His comicalities are simply delightful; he was the medieval Leech and Keene! Truly not all the old monks took religion seriously! but whatever their virtues or failings they were artists of no mean merit.