Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-04-03
IN The GLOAxING.


y 6 tW1Ilght lovsliness.
& onnomonts Of the old house at Wni.-
~ elowed ruddy and warm througn
3 ~ rvolIous clustering Ivy, and it was |
711r-a inrurv "a hang over the crumbling |
SvniL peopiIne it, suggestive chambers
~ - epirits of their long-gone tenants
= Z 6nfw-houss now, and there is no
- foooed 10 TELL the stranger the story
6fo slorious days No rigid history
~ fancy, and the strolling lover of
1sWuys and roadsides OF our dear
nGR England may let his imagination
~ With flowing rein, sweeping away the
Elnks and marigold beds and calling
~ the peacocks and bagwigs of the hal
~ dayA
( Fofhape for the last time in my life was
fnking the breath Of an English twilight
UWoetest TO those whose childhood and youth
I've fed on the rhyme and tale the green
o1d land has sent to her worldwide brood,
md who come, in ripper life, to find the
hncies Of early years warm and living on
every aide, in hedge and field, in cowslip
and primrose, in nightingale and lark. The
thick coming impressions such musing brings
are vague and dreamy, so that there seemeda
shade of unreality in the quiet voice that
bade me "Good evening"" and added, ayes,
( u II an engaging old house, and it has a
stcry that you may be glad to hear"
II was not from perversity that i turned
The subject, but no tale of real life could have
added interest to the fancies with which the
old manse had clad itself in the slowly wan
ing day. Wayside Impressions lose their
charm If too much considered, and, as my
new companion was walking toward Lich-
field, was glad to turn away and join him,
ending a long days tramp with the slow
and quiet gait that his age compelled. There
was the least shade OF the uncanny in his
bearing, and his speech was timorous and
gentle His threadbare and seedy look be-
tOkened a native unthrift, but there was an
undercurrent of refinement in his mien and
In his manner, and trusting outlook from
his large blue eyes that made him the fittest
OF companions for a summer evenings walk
in the country filled with the mingled flavor
OF history and romance.
He was a man of the intensest local train
iug. To him "the County OF the City of
Lfchfeld" was Of more consequence than all
6taffordshire besides, and far more than all
England and all that vague entity called the
World. Even the county OF the City of
Lichfield was large for his concentrated at
tachment; he knew it as one must know a
small town in which he has passed the whole
OF . long life; but his heart lay within the
cathedral close, and the cathedral close lay
deep within his heart--deep and warm,
with its history and its traditions, its 70.
nance and its reality, so interlaced that he
had long since ceased to ask what was real
and what unreal. Ali was unreal in the
sense of being of more than worldly con-
sequence in his estimation, and all real as
part OF the training of his whole life.
To him Lichtield cathedral was no mere
pile of sculptured stone, built round with the
facts of recorded history /; ii was the fairy
handiwork of times and scenes long past, its
walls raised by the hand of pious enthusiasm.
shattered and cemented by the strife and
blood of the civil war, bal !awad by the re-
turning glory OF the Restoration, blessed by
the favor OF royal presence, and now made
admirable in his daily sight by the dignity
and grace of those holy men its dean and
chapter.
AS 1t was the cathedral had come to see
and as had come for no architects measure
ments, for no students lore, only to bathe in
the charmed atmosphere of its storied past, |
had fallen upon guide after my own heart,
and it was as pleasant as it was easy to lend
full credence to all he SO honestly believed
and told.
In early life he had had gentler training,
but he had long been poor brother OF the
hospital OF St John the Baptist in Lichfield,
and had, for many years, held, by seniority,
the right OF presenting rose, on St Johns
nativity day, to the heirs of William Juvenis
(goldsmith), who, by grants made in con-
sideration of this ceremony, had secured
perennial prayers for the souls of his an
cestors and fragrant memory for his own.
Hedged about by the traditionary customs
and quaint observances OF an ancient charit-
able foundation, deadened in a way, if you
please, by The aristocratic pauperism of his
condition, my gentle companion had grown
to his present dreamy estate.
As we reached Stow Pool, near the old
parish church Of ST. Chad, he pointed out
the spring OF pure water where, twelve
hundred years ago, this future Bishop of
Lichfield-who during his hermit life sup
ported himself on the milk OF a doe-was
wont to pray naked in the water, standing
upon the stone still seen at the bottom of the
we'll, and where st OWN heard the angels
sing as his good soul passed away.
Then, with the trusting look of a little
child, the poor brother went on to tell OF the
virtues and good deeds of this holy life -
how even the king OF the Mercians, struck
with remorse for the crimes he had COM
mitted, visited the saint in person, yielded
TO his eloquent persuasion, became a.convert
to the true faith, and banished all idolatry
from his realm how he became the head Of
the church Of Lichfield and laid its strong
foundations OF piety and faith and how his
virtues so outlived him that his very tomb
swallowed the ill-humors of diseased minds
resorting to its serene presence, that the dust
from his grave healed all ills of man and
beast, and that the shrine built in his honor
after his canonzation was so sought by mum.
berless devotees that Lichfed itself began
thereupon to increase and flourish.
10 our LEFT, as he ceased, the evenings lin
gering glow gilded the silent pool, where
lay the unrippled reflection OF the three
sP"oS va tho cathouidi, ndiuly more uusuD-
stantial than the fairy silhouette that stood
ciean-cut against the sky, and dividing with
the reality the rapt admiration Of the poor
brother OF ST. Johns.
We stood by the waters edge, and he
turned toward the phantom spires reversed
within it. his talk wand ering back to the
days OF the church's troubles,-when the
cathedral close was a fortress, with strong
walls and well-tilled moat when the beauti.
iui west gate, which only our own age was
vile enough to destroy, kept stout ward
against the outer world, and protected the
favored community who formed within the
OF Stafiordshire. Within the sacred pale no
law had force save that of the Ecclesiastical
Court, and then, as now, none could there be
taken Tor debt or crime save ON the warrant
OF the dean and chapter
lie knew by heart the long list OF bishops,
ana would gladly have held me 10 hear of
the good deeds of Langton and Hackett He
was fairly launched in his favorite enthu-
siasm, and told warmly the more striking
features OF the church's history, but he told
them rapidly lest i should reach the storied
pie with less than tull apprehension of its
traditional interest
From his nervous lips learned how King
Richard III. kept Christmas reves here with
= splendor that layished two hundred tuns
OF VINE, and roasted two hundred oxen,
whose bones are still found in Oxenbury
neid hard by how Elizabeth passed three
whole days in the close and how the solidity
o. ~ fertilization, the consummate grace and
uninn OF its architecture, the richness OF its
scuipture, and the surprising beauty and
mA&nincence OF the nine windows of its lady
chaPei marked it as the crowning glory OF
sh he sslern church, until the dark days OF
In.