98 THE LEGEND OF THE ABBEY TOWER. 



THE LEGEND. 



" O, bid me leap, — rather than marry Paris, — 

 From off the battlements of yonder tower/' 



Shakespeare. 



"That Elizabethan mansion, of which you must have caught a 

 glinipse, about a quarter of a mile north of the town, was, some 



thirty years ago, the abode of Sir Baldwin de , whose 



titular dignities were perhaps of as long standing as the old abbey 

 itself. I think I see the old baronet at this moment, seated in his 

 oak-pannelled library with an old folio county history open before 

 him, and a vast genealogical tree thriving in green freshness against 

 one side of the apartment. Of all his choice wall-fruit, that which 

 depended from the wide-spreading branches of this tree was the 

 most treasured ; and it was, moreover, the only one of his plants 

 which he conceived could gather no benefit from pruning. Sir 

 Baldwin's eye would daily trace its ramifications, till, sated for the 

 time, with the * blushing honours* of his family ascent, it would 

 glance with more sobered delight upon a portrait of some loyal 

 Protestant by Hans Holbein, and with liquid pleasure upon an an- 

 cestor's lady-love by Sir Peter Lely. In a gloomy corner of the 

 room, leaning against a select heap of parliamentary acts, were to be 

 distinguished a pile of rusty fowling-pieces, bags and powder horns, 

 signs of poachers detected, or trophies of * game-keepers victori- 

 ous.' A partially-opened brown paper parcel, in another corner, 

 developed some shining japanned man-traps. It is, however, but 

 fair towards the baronet's humanity to state, that, while the notice 

 boards on his estate announced the provision of * Man-traps and 

 Spring-guns,' there were none on the * premises,' save those which 

 lay harmless in the study. The baronet had no objection to knock 

 down a trespasser with the butt end of a fowling-piece ; but he 

 shrank at the idea of sticking iron teeth into his shins. He was not 

 without natural feeling, but it lay dormant under a thick congela- 

 tion of family pride and artificial dignity. The ice being broken, 

 there was water enough to float a whole bark full of sympathies. 

 His was of that tenderness, however, which (like the elegaic kindli- 

 ness on a starved poet's tomb-stone,) invariably came too late ; and 

 there was^ perhaps, a touch of remorse in his occasional dribblings 

 of unavailing affection or regret ; although, such being the case, we 

 might have looked to see some increase of suavity in each subse- 

 quent stage of his conduct. It was far otherwise. Repentance 

 seemed rather to excoriate than soften his temper; for, it was re- 



