nry I. to check Welsh forays. Here lived the lord warden of the Forest
of Dean, and for three centuries every Whit-Sunday they held the annual
"scramble" in the church. It appears that a tax of one penny was levied
on every person who pastured his cattle on the common, and the amount
thus raised was expended for bread and cheese. The church was crowded,
and the clerk standing in the gallery threw out the edibles to the
struggling congregation below. The railway closely hugs the
swiftly-flowing river in its steep and narrow glen as we pass Offa's
Dyke and Chair and the Moravian village of Brockweir. Here the line of
fortifications crossed the valley which the king of Mercia constructed
to protect his dominions. The valley then slightly expands, and the
green sward is dotted by the houses of the long and scattered village of
Tintern Parva. The river sharply bends, and in the glen on the western
side stand the ruins of the far-famed Tintern Abbey in the green meadows
at the brink of the Wye. The spot is well chosen, for nowhere along this
celebrated river has Nature indicated a better place for quiet, heavenly
meditation not un-mixed with earthly comforts.

[Illustration: TINTERN ABBEY.]

Walter de Clare founded Tintern Abbey in 1131 for the Cistercian monks,
and dedicated it to St. Mary. It was built upon an ancient battlefield
where a Christian prince of Glamorgan had been slain by the heathen, but
of the buildings erected by De Clare none now exist, the present remains
being of later date, and the abbey church that is now in ruin was
erected by Roger Bigod, Duke of Norfolk. It is a magnificent relic of
the Decorated period. The vaulted roof and central tower are gone, but
the arches which supported the latter remain. The row of columns on the
northern side of the nave have fallen, with the clerestory above them,
but the remainder of the structure has suffered little damage. The
western front, with its noble window and exquisite tracery, is very
fine. Ivy and ferns overrun the walls and form a coping, while green
sward has replaced the pavement, so that it would be difficult to
imagine a more enchanting ruin, and as such Tintern is renowned the
world over. Lord Houghton has written:

"The men who called their passion piety,
And wrecked this noble argosy of faith,--
They little thought how beauteous could be death,
How fair the face of time's aye-deepening sea,
Nor arms that desolate, nor years that flee,