138 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFER1ES. 



Incidentally it ma} 7 be noted that until very 

 recently at least one village church in England 

 had part of the skin of a Dane nailed to the 

 door a stern reminder of the days when 

 ' the Pagans ' harried the land. This narrow 

 window, deep in the thick wall, has no painted 

 magnificence to boast of, but as you sit beside 

 it in the square high- sided pew, it possesses a 

 human interest which even art cannot supply. 

 The tall grass growing rank on the graves 

 without rustles as it waves to and fro in the 

 wind against the small diamond panes, yellow 

 and green with age rustles with a melancholy 

 sound, for we know that this window was 

 once far above the ground, but the earth has 

 risen till nearly on a level; risen from the ac- 

 cumulation of human remains. Yet but a day 

 or two before, on the Sunday morning, in this 

 pew, bright restless children smiled at each 

 other, exchanged guilty pushes, while the sun- 

 beams from the arrow- si it above shone upon 

 their golden hair. Let us not think of this 

 further. But dimly through the window, ' as 

 through a glass darkly/ see the green yew 

 with its red berries, and afar the elms and 



