The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-04-15

fiocks. like cameo reliefs on beds of daz-
cling emerald, with perspective of bill
lowy lines and misty clouds.
over here in Northamptonshire, Just at
the edge OF the garden shire of Warwick,
Is ancient, moss-grown Crick, sleeping
under its thatches beside Waiting street,
most famous OF Roman roads. There are
both rest and delight in old, old Crick;
rest, because it is one of those English
villages which stand just as it always
stood, where the roar of the workaday
worlds activities never comes; where the
old parish church, the graveyard, the de-
cayed manorhouse, the huge stone dove
cotes which house 500 families of doves,
the matched farm laborers' cottages, the
ives and messy walls, and the simple
village folk, all invite to quiet and re-
pose.
Not ten miles away you suddenly come
upon the daintlest and most flower
spanged village in England. 1t is tiny
collection OF dependencies upon the ma
nor OF Ashby st. LedgerS, but there can
nowhere else be found such flower en-
powered homes. Just at the northern
edge OF this, the whole forming a striking
background to the side broidery of one OF
the finest, wide, high overarchings of an
Client ash trees L have ever seen, nrst APP
pears huge wall, high, thick, ivy-hung
ana messy. SurmounIing this is won
derfully- picturesque old gatehouse with
TWO stones OF chambers and an attic-the
Verltable meetlng-room of the conspira-
tors IN the noted Guy Fawkes Gnnpow
der Plot of 1605-over capacious arch
way, Which formed the ancient sole en-
trance to the domain. Behind this are
other venerable outbuildings half thou
sand years old ana in perfect maze. To
the right. and higher, shows a grim,
square Norman tower and the messy roof
ut fIanT -fs.l,
all are the many massive gables of the
most splendidly fantastic manor-house
within the England midland shires.
How glorious an historic romance could
be wrought within Ashby 81. Ledgers'
grim and ghostly old walls!
In the western and western midland
shires of England are scores of ancient
villages of restfulness and beauty, hidden
coy from the globe-trotters' longnettes in
the sunny hollows of the verdant hills.
Old Broadway radweia" it once was,
from the shepherds ''cottes on the
mounted wolds down to the most fruit
full wales Of Evesham"-is lovely type
OF them all. All its houses are pictu-
rescue. Indeed, here is one of the few
ancient stone built villages of olden Eng
land, left precisely as its makers built 1t,
all the way from 300 to 800 years ago. On
every side are high pitched gabled roofs,
with wonderful stone and iron finals,
mullioned windows and bays, loaded
easements containing the original glass,
and huge, tall, stone chimney stacks-all
weathered to most beautiful colors.
Low stone walls in front inclose little
old world gardens with clipped and fan
cifully-shaped yew trees. It's quaintest
of hostelries abound in bits of detail, old
oak doors and hinges, old glass and case
ment tastenings and most curious CHM
ney preces, plaster ceilings and paneled
rooms. Every house has flat-headed,
mullioned windows, with massive wood
lintels inside and huge balks of oak,
roughly squared and nodded, over the
ingles and tireplaces. In these snug
old inns and in half the huge stone
farm-houses roundabout, tradition will
tell you, Charles l. or Elizabeth passed Il
night. How wise Of them to do so if they
had the footing, time and will.
EDGAR l.. WAKEMAN.