ously applied to their vile
jaws. For verily the mere Social Evil is an angel of light on this earth
as regards doing evil, compared to the Sociable Evil,--and thus endeth
the first lesson.

We leave the church, so full of friendly memories. In this one building
alone there are twenty things known to me from a boy. For from boyhood I
have held in my memory those lines by Queen Elizabeth which she uttered
here, and have read Lilly and Ashmole and Maginn; and this is only one
corner in merrie England! Am I a stranger here? There is a father-land
of the soul, which has no limits to him who, far sweeping on the wings of
song and history, goes forth over many lands.

We have but a little farther to go on our way before we come to the
quaint old manor-house which was of old the home of President Bradshaw,
the grim old Puritan. There is an old sailor in the village, who owns a
tavern, and he says, and the policeman agrees with him, that it was in
this house that the death-warrant of King Charles the First was signed.
Also, that there is a subterranean passage which leads from it to the
Thames, which was in some way connected with battle, murder, plots,
Puritans, sudden death, and politics; though how this was is more than
legend can clearly explain. Whether his sacred majesty was led to
execution through this cavity, or whether Charles the Second had it for
one of his numerous hiding-places, or returned through it with Nell Gwynn
from his exile, are other obscure points debated among the villagers.
The truth is that the whole country about Walton is subterrened with
strange and winding ways, leading no one knows whither, dug in the days
of the monks or knights, from one long-vanished monastery or castle to
the other. There is the opening to one of these hard by the hotel, but
there was never any gold found in it that ever I heard of. And all the
land is full of legend, and ghosts glide o' nights along the alleys, and
there is an infallible fairy well at hand, named the Nun, and within a
short walk stands the tremendous Crouch oak, which was known of Saxon
days. Whoever gives but a little of its bark to a lady will win her
love. It takes its name from _croix_ (a cross), according to Mr. Kemble,
{134} and it is twenty-four feet in girth. Its first branch, which is
forty-eight feet long, shoots out horizontally, and is almost as large as
the trunk. Under this tree Wickliffe preached, and Queen Elizabeth
dined.

It