erted Shrine, The Manor House

I was making a vague pilgrimage to-day in a distant and unfamiliar part
of the country, a region that few people ever visit, and saw two things
that moved me strangely. I left the high-road to explore a hamlet that
lay down in a broad valley to the left; and again diverged from the
beaten track to survey an old grange that lay at a little distance
among the fields. Turning a corner by some cottages, I saw a small
ancient chapel, of brown weathered stone, covered with orange lichen,
the roof of rough stone tiles. In the narrow graveyard round it, the
grass grew long and rank; the gateway was choked by briars. I could
see that the windows of the tiny building were broken. I have never
before in England seen a derelict church, and I clambered over the wall
to examine it more closely. It stood very beautifully; from the low
wall of the graveyard, on the further side, you could look over a wide
extent of rich water-meadows, fed by full streams; there was much
ranunculus in flower on the edges of the water-courses, and a few
cattle moved leisurely about with a peaceful air. Far over the
meadows, out of a small grove of trees, a manor-house held up its
enquiring chimneys. The door of the chapel was open, and I have seldom
seen a more pitiful sight than it revealed. The roof within was of a
plain and beautiful design, with carved bosses, and beams of some dark
wood. The chapel was fitted with oak Jacobean woodwork, pews, a
reading-desk, and a little screen. At the west was a tiny balustraded
gallery. But the whole was a scene of wretched confusion. The
woodwork was mouldering, the red cloth of the pulpit hung raggedly
down, the leaves of the great prayer-book fluttered about the pavement,
in the draught from the door. The whole place was gnawed by rats and
shockingly befouled by birds; there was a litter of rotting nests upon
the altar itself. Yet in the walls were old memorial tablets, and the
passage of the nave was paved with lettered graves. It brought back to
me the beautiful lines--

"En ara, ramis ilicis obsita,
Quae sacra Chryses nomina fert deae,
Neglecta; jamdudum sepultus
Aedituus jacet et sacerdos."

Outside the sun fell peacefully on the mellow walls, and the starlings
twittered in the roof; but inside the deserted shrine there was a sense
of broken trust, of old memories despised, of the altar of God shamed
and dishonoured. It was a pious design to bu