The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1886-04-16
SELECT STORY.
IN THE CLEANING.


the early evening had hung the sky
with mellow, summery, twilight lowell
ness.
The easements of the old house at
Wilmington glowed ruddy and warm
through their marvellous clustering
ivy, aud it was idlest luxury to hang
over the crumbling road wall, peopling
its suggestive chambers with the spirits
of their long-gone tenants. 1t is a
farmhouse now, and there is no avail
able record to tell the stranger the
story of its more glorious days. No
rigid history hampers the fancy, and
the strolling lover of the by-ways and
roadsides of our dear Mother England
may let his imagination run with flow
ing rein, sweeping away the hayricks
and marigold beds and calling back
the peacocks and bagwigs of the hal
cyon days.
Perhaps for the last time in my life
| was taking the breath of an English
twilight, to those whose
childhood and youth have fed on the
rhyme and tale the green old land has
sent to her world wide brood, and who
come, in ripper life, to find the fances
OF early years warm and living on
every side, in hedge and field, in COW.
slip and primrose, in nightingale and
lark. The thick-coming impressions
such musings bring are vague and
dreamy, 80 that there seemed a shade
of upreality in the quiet voice that bade
me Good evening" and added, "Yes,
it is an engaging old house, and it has
a story that you may be glad to hear
1t was not from perversity that l
turned the subject but no tale of real
life could have added interest to the
fancies with which the old manse had
clad itself il the slowly waning day.
Wayside impressions lose their charm
if too much considered, and, as my
new companion was walking toward
Lichfield, l was glad to turn away and
join him,-ending 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 gen
tie. His threadbare and seedy look
betokened native unthrift, but there
was an undercurrent of refinement ia
his mien and in his manner, and trust.
ing outlook from his large blue eyes
that made him the fttest of compan-
ions for Summer evenings walk in
the country filled with the mingled fla
vor Of history and romance.
He was man Of the intensest To-
cal training. To him ''the County of
the City of Lichtield" was of more
consequence than all Staffordshire
besides, and far more than all England
and all that vague entity called the
World. Even the county of the City
of Lichfeld was large for his concen-
trated attachment; he knew it as one
must know 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
romance and its reality, so interlaced
that he had long since ceased to ask
what was real and what unreal. All
was unreal in the sense of being of
more than worldly consequence in his
estimation, and all real as part of the
training of his whole life.
To him Lichfield cathedral was no
mere pile of sculptured stone, built
round with the facts of recorded his
tory; it was the fairy handiwork OF
times and scenes long passed, its walls
raised by the hand of pious enthusi
asm, shattered and cemented by the
strife and blood Of the civil war, hal
lowed by the returning glory of the
Restoration, blessed by the favor of
royal presence, and now made admiIa-
BILE in his daily sight by the dignity
and grace of those holy men its dean
and chapter.
AS it was the cathedral had come
to see, and as | had come for no arch
itect's measurements, for no students
lore, onl y to bathe in the charmed at
mospbere of its storied past, had
fallen upon guide after my own
heart, and it was as pleasant as it was
easy to lend full credeDce to all he so
honestly believed and told.
In earlier life he had lad gentler
training, but he had long been poor
brother of the hospital of st. John the
Baptist in Lichfeld, and had, for many
yeas, held, by seniority, the right of
presenting rose, on st. Johns nativ-
ity day. to the heirs of William Juve-
mis- (goldsmith), who, by grants made
in consideration of this ceremony, had
secured perennial prayers for the souls
of his ancestors and fragrant mem
Ory for his own.
Hedged about by the traditionary
customs and quaint observances of an
ancient charitable foundation, dead
ened in way, if you please, by the
aristocratic pauperism of his oondi-
tion, 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 Lichfeld-who during
his hermit life supported 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
well, 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 his holy life;Lhow even the king
of the Mercians, struck with remorse
for the crimes he had committed, Wis
tied 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 be.
came the head of the church of Lich-
field and laid its strong foundations of
piety and faith and how his virtues 30
outllved him that his very tomb swal-
lowed 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 cauoniza-
tion waa ao souoht hv nnmharlaas do