very fine tower, but possessing no particular interest, if we except
some exceedingly good brasses and a colossal figure of a monk cut out
of the solid heart of an oak, and supposed to be the effigy of a prior
of the abbey who died in the time of Edward I. Below the church again,
and about one hundred and fifty paces from it, was the vicarage, a
comparatively modern building, possessing no architectural attraction,
and evidently reared out of the remains of the monastery.

At the south end of the Abbey House itself lay a small grass plot and
pleasure-garden fringed with shrubberies, and adorned with two fine
cedar-trees. One of these trees was at its further extremity, and
under it there ran a path cut through the dense shrubbery. This path,
which was edged with limes and called the "Tunnel Walk," led to the
lake, and debouched in the little glade where stood Caresfoot's Staff.
The lake itself was a fine piece of water, partly natural and partly
constructed by the monks, measuring a full mile round, and from fifty
to two hundred yards in width. It was in the shape of a man's shoe,
the heel facing west like the house, but projecting beyond it, the
narrow part representing the hollow of the instep, being exactly
opposite to it, and the sole swelling out in an easterly direction.

Bratham Abbey was altogether a fine old place, but the most remarkable
thing about it was its air of antiquity and the solemnity of its
peace. It did not, indeed, strike the spirit with that religious awe
which is apt to fall upon us as we gaze along the vaulted aisles of
great cathedrals, but it appealed perhaps with equal strength to the
softer and more reflective side of our nature. For generation after
generation that house had been the home of men like ourselves; they
had passed and were forgotten, but it remained, the sole witness of
the stories of their lives. Hands of which the very bones had long