s as is the young lord now,
and half his life he's bin a wandrer in foreign parts, and isn't come
home yet. Maybe he never will come back. It's like enough he's got
killed out there, or he'd be tied to answer parson's letters. Wouldn't
he, Mr Sharnall?" he said, turning abruptly to the organist with a
wink, which was meant to retaliate for the slight that the Rector had
put on his stories.

"Come, come; we've had enough of these tales," said the Rector. "Your
listeners are getting tired."

"The man's in love with his own voice," he added in a lower tone, as he
took Westray by the arm; "when he's once set off there's no stopping
him. There are still a good many points which Sir George and I
discussed, and on which I shall hope to give you our conclusions; but we
shall have to finish our inspection to-morrow, for this talkative fellow
has sadly interrupted us. It is a great pity the light is failing so
fast just now; there is some good painted glass in this end window of
the transept."

Westray looked up and saw the great window at the end of the transept
shimmering with a dull lustre; light only in comparison with the shadows
that were falling inside the church. It was an insertion of
Perpendicular date, reaching from wall to wall, and almost from floor to
roof. Its vast breadth, parcelled out into eleven lights, and the
infinite division of the stonework in the head, impressed the
imagination; while mullions and tracery stood out in such inky contrast
against the daylight yet lingering outside, that the architect read the
scheme of subarcuation and the tracery as easily as if he had been
studying a plan. Sundown had brought no gleam to lift the pall of the
dying day, but the monotonous grey of the sky was still sufficiently
light to enable a practised eye to make out that the head of the window
was filled with a broken medley of ancient glass, where translucent
blues and yellows and reds mingled like the harmony of an old patchwork
quilt. Of the lower divisions of the window, those at the sides had no
colour to clothe their nakedness, and remained in ghostly whiteness; but
the three middle lights were filled with strong browns and purples of
the seventeenth century. Here and there in the rich colour were
introduced medallions, representing apparently scriptural scenes, and at
the top of each light, under the cusping, was a coat of arms. The head
of the middle division formed the centre of the whole scheme