FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 139 



beeches, brown and yellow. The steep down 

 rises over them, and the moving gray patch 

 upon it is a flock of sheep. The white wall is 

 cold and damp, and the beams of the roof 

 overhead, though the varnish is gone from 

 them, are dank with slow decay. In the 

 recess lies the figure of a knight in armour, 

 rudely carved, beside his lad} 7 , still more 

 rudely rendered in her stiff robes, and of 

 him an ill-spelt inscription proudly records 

 that he ' builded ye greate howse at ' no 

 matter where but history records that cruel 

 war wrapped it in flames before half a genera- 

 tion was gone. So that the boast of his build- 

 ing great houses reads as a bitter mockery. 

 There stands opposite a grander monument to 

 a mighty earl, and over it hangs a breastplate, 

 and gauntlets of steel. The villagers will tell 

 that in yonder deep shady * combe ' or valley, 

 in the thick hazel-bushes, when the l beetle 

 with his drowsy htfm ' rises through the night 

 air, there comes the wicked old earl wearing 

 this very breastplate, these iron gloves, to 

 expiate one evil deed of yore. And if we 

 sit in this pew long enough, till the mind is 



