NEWINGTON 143 



However that may be, Heiir}^ the Second would have 

 no more nuns here. He placed seven priests in the 

 Prior}^ as secular canons, and gave them the manor, 

 hoping that this religious house would in future have 

 a less lurid career. But things, instead of improving, 

 grew wcrse. One of the canons was found murdered in 

 his bed, and four of the brethren were convicted of the 

 crime. 



From these queer stories we come, appropriately 

 enough, to a tale in which the Enemy bears a brave 

 })art. AVhen Newington Church was being built, 

 " ever so long ago," as the tale of gramarye has it, 

 and the time came for the bells to be himg, the Devil, 

 who, it is well known, hates the sound of church bells, 

 conceited the grand plan of pushing the tower o>'er, so 

 that the builders would give up the idea. Accordingly, 

 he ventured down the lane one night, and, standing in 

 the churchyard — as he could well do, because the place 

 was not yet consecrated — placed his back against the 

 tower, and, putting his feet against a wall on the other 

 side of the road, pushed. No one knows what was the 

 result, but as there is a tower here to this day — and 

 a very fine one it is, too — it may be presumed that 

 either Satan had altogether overrated his strength, 

 or that the builders had built better than they knew. 

 But if the Enemy failed in this, he at least succeeded 

 in leaving his mark. Accordingly, here is the wall, 

 and in it is a stone, and in that stone is a hole made 

 by his toes ; while on another stone is the print of a very 

 fine and large boot-sole — valuable evidence, because it 

 not only proves the truth of the story but also shows us 

 that the De^il wore a Blucher boot on one foot and let 

 the other go unshod. If you ask me how it came 

 about that the Devil could come here in the fourteenth 

 century wearing a nineteenth-century boot, I must 

 quote the showman who exhibited a wax model of 

 Daniel in the lions' den. Daniel was seen to be 

 reading the Times, and some one in the crowd pointed 

 out the incongruous circumstance, to which the 



