i868 A PAGAN AT THE POST-OFFICE 301 



Westmoreland men, before you can say whew. We 

 have begun in the Vale of Eden, and will by and by 

 invade your dominions, if you don t mind your eye. 

 Ever sincerely, A. C. RAMSAY. 



BLANCHLAND, 24^ September 1868. 



MY DEAREST WIFE I write to tell you that I am 

 living in a fragment of an ancient abbey, placed on 

 the banks of the Derwent, far up the stream. The 

 house is now an inn, and our window looks out on a 

 plot of grass that may have been in the middle of the 

 cloisters. The modern church, a fragment of the old 

 one, re-muddled, looks on our grass ; and pear-trees, 

 trained against the walls, the fruit of which the monks 

 ate, writhe their old branches all about the stones. 

 Such relics of a beautiful antiquity always fill me with 

 a sort of regretful feeling. If it had only been possible 

 to preserve them ! How many lovely spots there are 

 in England that one never heard of till one gets in 

 among them. Howell came with me from Hexham ; 

 we drove over the hills, twelve miles, after four o clock 

 yesterday. At Hexham there are also the remains of 

 a grand abbey. The transept and the chancel are 

 entire, and are used (though abused), but the nave is 

 gone. It is as big as many a cathedral, and noble 

 Early English in style. 



I must tell you a story of our friend Noumeran, 

 the Japanese. He had a post-office order sent to the 

 country, and when he signed his name the postmaster 

 insisted that it would not do. You must sign your 

 Christian name as well. But/ said Noumeran, I am 

 not a Christian ; I am a Pagan. Amazement of the 

 postmaster, who only knew of Pagans before as oi 

 dragons, or griffins, or fabulous monsters of some sort. 



