FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 137 



advantage, at least, in the closing of the church 

 on week-days, so much complained of to 

 those who do visit it there is a certainty that 

 their thoughts will not be disturbed. And the 

 sense of man's presence has departed from the 

 walls and oaken seats; the dust here is not 

 the dust of the highway, of the quick footstep; 

 it is the dust of the past. The ancient heavy 

 key creaks in the cumbrous lock, and the iron 

 latch-ring has worn a deep groove in the solid 

 stone. The narrow nail- studded door of black 

 oak yields slowly to the push it is not easy 

 to enter, not easy to quit the Present but 

 once close it, and the living world is gone. 

 The very style of ornament upon the door 

 the broad-headed nails has come down from 

 the remotest antiquity. After the battle, says 

 the rude bard in the Saxon chronicle, 



" ' The Northmen departed 

 In their nailed barks,' 



and earlier still the treacherous troop that 

 seized the sleeping magician in iron, Wayland 

 the Smith, were clad in ' nailed armour/ in 

 both instances meaning ornamented with nails. 



