The Scranton chronicle. (Scranton, Miss.) 1897-19??, 1901-01-05
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BY THE LYCH GATE
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THERE is a valley amidst the York

THERE is valley amidst the York
shire hills known as Coverdale.
from whose slopes, long years ago.
came pious Miles, who translated the
Bible, and who was called by the sim
pie folk Miles, of Coverdale, after the
place OF his birth.
Very calm and very peaceful the lit
tie dale lies under the shadow of the
great hills. whose SUBMITS are purple
in the sweet summertide with their
royal mantle of fragrant heather, and
where the curlew and the golden plo-
.ver's cry alone breaks the gentle still
ness that rests over the little world
beyond the haunts of restless activity
and hurrying life.
There is no railway in quiet Cover
dale, no town to which the country
folk may wend their way, no shops save
the wonderful village emporium, where
everything in a very small way may be
obtained, but where few fashions come
to startle the gayer minded of the
maidens, or strange new devices in
neckties to dazzle the vision of the
country lads.
To peep into the world necessitates
. journey under the shelter of the lone
hillsides, along bonny lanes, en-
twined with pink and creamy tinted
honeysuckle, and green with waving
ferns; past the quaint inn, whose sign
is famous but long ago race horse,
called in the canny Yorkshire tongue
TIL Lady Bah, and, finally, across the
moor into horse-loving Middleham,
where are people and shops, and many
inns with curiously painted sign posts
the Black Swan, and its brother, the
White Swan, and many others, too.
But down in Coverdale there is a
beautiful old church, set like jewel
in its surrounding of stately trees
and blossoming hedges, with the quiet
greenness of Gods acre lying stretched
about it, and the singing of natures
choristers in the sweet air around
place of peacefulness and repose,
where earth's burdens may fall from
one for little space, and Heavens ben
ison light softly on such of its children
as stay to pray and think awhile.
There is quaint lych-gate at the en-
trance to the holy spot, carved halt
ing place of oak, set tenderly by some
good man of the dalespeople--a squire
of the olden days, who loved his home
and his neighbors, and his God full
well, 1 think, and sought to beautify
the church in which he and his had
worshiped so long.
And down the fair avenue of trees
within the precincts and past the quiet
church the remains of what was once
the proud abbey cf Coverdale. where
the monks said masses and cultivated
their garden, and tended the souls and
bodies of the poor and needy in the
dale.
1t Is beautiful spot in a beautiful
countryside, and 80 thought a man
who viewed it lovingly, and pointed
out all its changeful lights and shad-
Dws, all its pretty peeps of field and
river, to his wife.
They had only been married little
while, few short weeks, and had elect
ed to spend their honeymoon in some of
the quaint corners of England-hence
& their journeying thither to this seques-
tered nook among the hills and the far
stretched moorlands in their yelling of
regal purple. The man loved it al
zNready, with the artist love which sees
the beautiful so quickly and feels il so
strongly; and the woman-well, she saw
a the beauties, too, but she was growing
little weary of pretty sights, and she
was very pretty and spoilt herself, and
perhaps little jealous of admiration
wasted, which might have been divert
td homeward
So she stood by the quaint relies of
the abbots and mailed knights t Cover.
ham, where two quaint forms guard
Doorway. as perchance their originals
guarded some stronghold in the old
8 fiShting days long gone. and her white.
gown fell over the gray stones and
CLEANED against the red and orange
nasturtiums in the garden which sur
rounds the old walls and arches, and
she wondered if her husband had near
ly finished his sketch, and whether
they would stay at MiddIeham for
day or two, or go on further to Wens-
leydale?
II am rather tired of admirng
places" she said to herself, little i'm
patiently. "And, then, / never can re-
member who lived in the castles and
abbeys. How uncomfortable they
must have beeni"
And then-for she was only a very
young bride. too-she felt sorry for
having been impatient, even in her
Thoughts, toward her husband, and
zhe turned to speak 10 him with an
even sweefer smile than usual on her
Fl pretty lips. For her husband was
b genius in his way, thinker and an
Il author, and everyone had envied her
when she married him, in spite of her
wealth.
ALL there was a pitiful ring in the
sr3ry-poor and naulelers, but clever,
ssatiDs himself to pieces IN his eager