w many small and negligible things may we not see
even to-day the very mark and standard of Rome, her sign manual after
all, under the rubbish of the modern world. And if you desire an
example, let me give you weathercocks.

No man can walk for day after day along this tremendous road which
leads us straight as a javelin thrust back through all the lies and
excuses to the truth of our origins, without noticing, and especially
since he must keep an eye on the wind and the weather, the astonishing
number of weathercocks there be between London and Canterbury. Upon
almost every steeple, chanticleer towers shining in the sun and wildly
careering in the winds of spring. You think that nothing at all, the
most ordinary sight in modern England? But for the seeing eye it
reveals, how much! Everyone of these weathercocks crows there on the
tip top of the steeple over each town or village because of an order
of the Pope. They were to be the sign of the jurisdiction of St Peter,
and that by a Bull of the ninth century. How entrancing it is to
remember such a thing as that in the midst of modern England.

In spite of the weathercocks and their watchfulness, however, the
memories of the great pilgrimage between Faversham and Harbledown are
dishearteningly few. One might surely expect to find something at
Preston for instance, where, coming out of Faversham, one rejoins the
Watling Street, but there is nothing at all to remind one of the great
past of the Way. It is true that Preston church, dedicated in honour
of St Catherine, is both ancient and beautiful, and once belonged to
the monastery of Christ Church in Canterbury; but neither in its
channel, which must once, before the eastern window was inserted in
1862, with its single lancets and sedilia, have been extraordinarily
fine, nor in the nave, is there any memory at all of St Thomas or the
Pilgrims. It is not indeed until we come to Boughton that we are
reminded of them.

The older part of the parish of Boughton is South Street, where,
however, nothing now remains older than the sixteenth century at the
earliest. Here, however, was anciently a wayside chapel to the south
of the road where now Holy Lane turns out of it. About a mile, or
rather less, to the south, and clean off the road, stands on the crest
of a steep, though not a high hill, the lovely village of Boughton
under Blee, which, curiously enough, if we consider what is omitted,
is mentioned by Chaucer,