256 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



which (dedicated as it Is to uphold in its degree the 

 order and decency of the Estabhshed Church) was here 

 uninterruptedly held by three generations of the Neaves 

 through a series of 136 years. In this period how 

 many for whom they had prepared the Font and whose 

 giddy childhood they had effectually chastised were by 

 them finally conducted to the spots around, where now 

 they rest in humble hope of resurrection to life 

 eternal." 



Let us return to the old clerk of Itchen Abbas, whose 

 life had been spent in the village and whose bright 

 memory retained the story of its life during the whole 

 of that long period. Squire, parsons, farmers, labourers, 

 he remembered them all — the old-style farmers who sat 

 at meat with their men before the division of classes, 

 and before the piano came in and the church organ to 

 kill the villagers' music. Also the fairies and ghosts. 

 The tricksy little people were not seen but were known 

 to be about in a field close by, "Fairy Field" it was 

 called because when it was being ploughed the horses 

 invariably stopped short at a certain spot and refused 

 to go on. Eventually, during the late owner, Sir Charles 

 Shelley's, time a well-preserved Roman pavement w^as 

 discovered by chance at a depth of three to four feet, 

 just on the spot over which the horses had always re- 

 fused to draw the plough! The other supernatural 

 story relates to an old house adjoining the village and 

 overlooking the quiet valley of the Itchen. Here, 

 tradition says, a crime was committed by a former 

 owner, and from the time of his death the place was 



