244- ^ Walk from 



have read of such a thing in Longfellow's poems, 

 but hardly realise that it exists still in civilised 

 countries. Here bridges are works of art as well as 

 of utility, and rank next to the grand old cathedrals 

 and parish churches for solidity and symmetry. Their 

 stone arches are frequently turned with a grace as 

 fine as any in St. Paul's, and their balustrades and 

 hutments often approach the domain of sculpture. 



Crossing the Nen, I followed it for several miles 

 in a northerly direction. I soon came to a rather 

 low, level section of the road, and noticed stones placed 

 at the side of it, at narrow intervals, for a long distance 

 to the very foot of a village situated on a rising ground. 

 These stones were evidently taken from some ancient 

 edifice, for many of them bore the marks of the old 

 cathedral or castle chisel. They were the foot-tracks 

 of a ruined monument of dark and painful history. 

 More than this might be said of them. They were the 

 blood-drops of a monstrosity chased from its den and 

 hunted down by the people, that shuddered with horror 

 at its sanguinary record of violence and wrong. As I 

 approached the quiet village, whose pleasant-faced 

 houses, great and small, looked like a congregation of 

 old and young sitting reverently around the parish 

 church and listening to the preaching of the belfry, I 

 saw where these stones came from. There, on that 



