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, 2^th 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 of 

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



