ustration "T.D. 1678." It was discovered, together with a sword
(_temp._ Charles II), between the ceiling and the floor when an old
farm-house called Gundry's, at Stoke-under-Ham, was pulled down. The
year was one of great political disturbance, being that in which the
so-called "Popish Plot" was exploited by Titus Oates. Possibly
"T.D." was fearful of being implicated, concealed this inscription,
and effected his escape.

[Illustration: Staircase Newel Cromwell House, Highgate]

Our forefathers must have been animated by the spirit which caused Mr.
Ruskin to write: "When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it
be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think,
as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones
will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men
will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them,
'See! this our fathers did for us.'"

[Illustration: Piece of Wood Carved with Inscription Found with a
sword (_temp._ Charles II) in an old house at Stoke-under-Ham,
Somerset]

[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Water-clock, in Norwich Museum]

Contrast these old houses with the modern suburban abominations,
"those thin tottering foundationless shells of splintered wood and
imitated stone," "those gloomy rows of formalised minuteness, alike
without difference and without fellowship, as solitary as similar," as
Ruskin calls them. These modern erections have no more relation to
their surroundings than would a Pullman-car or a newly painted piece
of machinery. Age cannot improve the appearance of such things. But
age only mellows and improves our ancient houses. Solidly built of
good materials, the golden stain of time only adds to their beauties.
The vines have clothed their walls and the green lawns about them have
grown smoother and thicker, and the passing of the centuries has
served but to tone them down and bring them into closer harmony with
nature. With their garden walls and hedges they almost seem to have
grown in their places as did the great trees that stand near by. They
have nothing of the uneasy look of the parvenu about them. They have
an air of dignified repose; the spirit of ancient peace seems to rest
upon them and their beautiful surroundings.

[Illustration: Sun-dial. The Manor House, Sutton Courtenay]

CHAPTER VIII

THE DESTRUCTION O