Читать книгу Henry Smeaton - G. P. R. James - Страница 11

An old Norman church, built in the earliest style of that fine but somewhat heavy architecture, stands about five miles from Ale Head and Bay, upon the slope of a gentle hill, with many other hills around it. It is a large structure for the present population of the adjacent country, if one may judge from the appearance of the land immediately round. The hill is part of a long range of downs, undivided by enclosure, and covered by short dry sward, very much like that which spreads over Ale Head itself. No trees are to be seen as far as the eye can reach, except, indeed, two old yew trees standing close to the church, and, probably, planted there by Saxon hands long before the first stone of the present edifice was laid. So close are they, indeed, that the long branches of one of them wave against the mouldings of one of the deep round arched windows, and would, in stormy weather, break the lozenges of the casement were they not kept under by the pruning-knife or shears. A piece of ground is taken in from the hill to form the burial-ground, and is surrounded by a low wall, with only one entrance, covered over with a penthouse raised upon high posts. By this gate, pass in and out all who come to the consecrated ground; the child, to its baptism, the gay wedding party, to the altar; the congregation, to the worship of God; the corpse, to the grave.

About three or four hundred yards below the church, in the bottom of the little valley, through which runs a stream of the clearest and brightest water, are four or five small houses, or cottages, I should call them, built of the grey stone of the country, and most of them thatched. One, however, is of two stories, and has a tiled roof. They have all their little gardens attached, and are kept in tolerably neat order; yet, then one looks at this little hamlet from the downs above, and sees it lying grey upon the green and undivided turf, it has a desolate and neglected look, as if it had been left behind in the world's march to rest in the desert expanse around it. Except those two old yews, there is not a tree near bigger than a currant-bush.

Neither is there any other house to be seen, look which way you will; for the wide downs only serve for sheep-pasture, and have such a look of depopulation that, in some of the slopes of the ground, one might fancy one was standing alone upon the earth, just after the universal deluge had subsided. I know not whether it looks more lonely when all the heavens are covered with grey clouds, or when the bright sun shines upon it from the broad undimmed sky.

Nevertheless, when the musical bell rings on the Sabbath morn from the old pale tower, the desert seems to waken into life, and people come streaming over the hills--now a solitary man or woman, now a group of two or three, now a family, young and old, age and boyhood, now a group of children, sporting as they run. The scene is all changed, and it is very pleasant to behold.

Within that church, too, are records of other days which would seem to show that the neighbourhood was not always so scantily peopled as at present. The gravestones in the churchyard, indeed, are not thick or many, and you can walk at ease, without stumbling, over the little mounds where rest the mortal remains of the peasantry. But within, against the walls, and even let into the pillars, are many tablets of marble, black or white, recording virtues and good qualities, and affection and mourning, which have now left no other memorial behind them. In the aisles, too, and in the chancel (for the church is built somewhat in the form of a cathedral), are various very beautiful monuments of different ages; the mail-clad warrior, spurred and sworded, the pilgrim from the Holy Land, even a mitred abbot, judges, and statesmen, and soldiers of a later day--ay, and the tomb of an infant princess--are there; while, on the pavement on which you tread, the old stained glass window at the east end, the only one remaining, sheds its gem-like colours upon slabs of marble, bearing inscriptions and effigies in brass.

Various are the names which appear in different parts of the church; but, wherever the eye looks, more frequently than any other, will be found that of Newark. Statues under which that name is written, in old Gothic characters, are amongst the Crusaders, and on one black marble figure, near the font, is a good representation of the heavy plate-armour of the days of Henry VIII., while above hangs a silken banner, of which neither the original colour, nor the emblems, can be discovered through the dust and mould encumbering it. Nearer to the communion-table is the monument of another Newark, fresher than the rest, while an inscription below, in modern characters and in bad Latin, attests that the form above represents a gallant soldier of the name of Newark, who fell, bravely fighting for his king, on Naseby field. He is represented, certainly, not in the most classical costume, with a buff coat, large boots, and the end of a lace cravat finely sculptured on his chest. The features are not distinguishable; for, after the monument was raised--and it was a bold thing in those days to raise it--Cromwell's soldiers got possession of the church, and with hammers, or perhaps the pommels of their swords, sadly mutilated that statue and many others. It would seem that the family of Newark had been steady loyalists; for, on a tablet hard by, is an inscription to the memory of that warrior's brother, erected during the reign of Charles II., and stating that he died while in exile with his king.

On the morning of the fourth day after Smeaton's arrival at Ale Manor, a ladder was placed against the side of the church, and an old man, with something like a reaping-hook in his hand, was mounted upon one of the high rounds chopping away at the branches of the yew-tree, which approached too close, as I have said, to the window. He was far advanced in life, and his coat, thrown off, lay at the foot of the ladder. He had on, however, a waistcoat with woollen sleeves. His thin and shrunken nether man was warmly clothed, and, to judge from his dress, he was well to do in life. He had a fine bald head, with scanty white hair upon the temples; but his brow was knit as well as furrowed, and a sort of sarcastic expression played about his mouth, which was not altogether agreeable. Otherwise his features were good, and on looking at his face, one did not well know whether to think it pleasing or not.

While he was still hewing away, the solitude of the scene was somewhat disturbed by the trotting of a horse up to the door of one of the houses below, over which hung a large straggling bush, with an inscription underneath, to the following effect: