170 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



down the glebe meadows where the bee-orchis grows 

 and try his hand at " catching trouts " in " the swift, 

 shallow, clear, pleasant brook" of the Meon. Some- 

 times in cold weather, when the elements kept the old 

 man indoors, Mr. John Darbyshire or Squire Morley 

 would come over to the rectory for a chat by the fire- 

 side. Walton would relate to his friends many anec- 

 dotes of the great Churchmen he had known in former 

 years, of Sir Henry Wotton, and Hales, and Chilling- 

 worth. He would tell, in tones of awe, of " the dread- 

 ful vision " which once appeared to Dr. Donne ; or he 

 would show the gold signet ring his friend had left 

 him, and with which he afterwards signed his will, in 

 which was set a bloodstone with the figure of the 

 Crucified, not on the cross, but on an anchor, as the 

 emblem of hope; or, in a lighter vein, he would tell of 

 the pleasant days long gone by when he " had laid 

 aside business, and gone a-fishing with honest Nat 

 and R. Roe " ; or perhaps he would play a " game at 

 shovel-board " with his friends. Mr. John Darbyshire, 

 on his part, would have much to tell of the way in 

 which, a few years before he came, the quiet village 

 of Droxford was affected by the great rebellion. He 

 would repeat the story learnt from the parishioners, 

 how " the learned Dr. Preston," " for his eminent 

 loyalty," had been shamefully entreated, and how 

 grievously the Church had suffered from the icono- 

 clasm of the age. He would not forget to speak of the 

 stately altar tomb which for four centuries had stood 

 in the south chapel to the memory of the mother of 

 John de Drokenford, the famous Bishop of Bath and 

 Wells and Chancellor of England in the troubled days 

 of Edward II., and which had been utterly destroyed, 

 and her monumental effigy of Purbeck marble thrust 

 out of the church, and buried somewhere in the meadows 



