r head and
looking round with a smile, "think you not it would be a fairer lot to
bide this night at some kind monastery, than to be hastening now to that
least picturesque of all creations, a railway station."

"The railways will do as much for mankind as the monasteries did," said
Stephen.

"Had it not been for the railway, we should never have made our visit to
Marney Abbey," said the elder of the travellers.

"Nor seen its last abbot's tomb," said the Religious. "When I marked
your name upon the stone, my father;--woe is me, but I felt sad indeed,
that it was reserved for our blood to surrender to ruthless men that
holy trust."

"He never surrendered," said her father. "He was tortured and hanged."

"He is with the communion of saints," said the Religious.

"I would I could see a communion of Men," said Stephen, "and then there
would be no more violence, for there would be no more plunder."

"You must regain our lands for us, Stephen," said the Religious;
"promise me my father that I shall raise a holy house for pious women,
if that ever hap."

"We will not forget our ancient faith," said her father, "the only old
thing that has not left us."

"I cannot understand," said Stephen, "why you should ever have lost
sight of these papers, Walter."

"You see, friend, they were never in my possession; they were never
mine when I saw them. They were my father's; and he was jealous of all
interference. He was a small yeoman, who had risen in the war time, well
to do in the world, but always hankering after the old tradition that
the lands were ours. This Hatton got hold of him; he did his work well,
I have heard;--certain it is my father spared nothing. It is twenty-five
years come Martinmas since he brought his writ of right; and though
baffled, he was not beaten. But then he died; his affairs were in great
confusion; he had mortgaged his land for his writ, and the war prices
were gone. There were debts that could not be paid. I had no capital for
a farm. I would not sink to be a labourer on the soil that had once been
our own. I had just married; it was needful to make a great exertion. I
had heard much of the high wages of this new industry; I left the land."

"And the papers?"

"I never thought of them, or thought of them with disgust, as the cause
of my ruin. Then when you came the other day, and showed me in the
book that the last abbot of Marney was a Walter Gerard, the old feeling
stirred again; and I c