t gray pearl on the crown of the hill. On one side spreads
the town; on the other, the tall trees of the castle park begirt its
towers and battlements. At the foot of the hill runs the river--a
beautiful sinuous stream, which curves its course between the Down
hillsides out through the plains to the sea. Whatever may have been the
fate of the town in former times, held perhaps at a distance far below in
the valley, during troublous times when the castle must be free for the
more serious work of assault or defense, it no longer lies at the foot of
its great protector. In friendly confidence it seems to sit, if not within
its arms, at least beside its knee....

There is no escaping the conclusion that a duke, when one is confronted
with his castle, does seem an awfully real being. The castle was a great
Catholic stronghold, the Dukes of Norfolk being among the few great
families which have remained faithful, since the Conquest, to the See of
Rome. The present Duke of Norfolk, by reason of the fervor of his piety,
his untiring zeal and magnificent generosity, is recognized as the head of
the Catholic party in England. To learn that he was at present on a
pilgrimage to Lourdes, and that such was his yearly custom, seemed to
shorten distance for us. It made the old--its beliefs, its superstitions,
its unquestioning ardor of faith--strangely new. It invested the castle,
which appealed to our consciousness as something remote and alien, with
the reality of its relation to medieval life and manners.

The little cathedral which crowns the hill--the most prominent object for
miles about, after the castle--is the gift of the present Duke. It is a
pretty structure, pointed Gothic in style, consciously reproduced with all
the aids of flying buttresses, niches, pinnacles, and arches. It was
doubtless a splendid gift. Perhaps in the twenty-first century, when the
weather has done its architectural work on the exterior, and when the
interior has been finely dimmed with burned incense, when stained glass
and sculptured effigies of saints have been donated by future dukes, it
will be a very imposing edifice indeed.

But all the beauty of ecclesiastical picturesqueness lies across the way.
Hidden behind the lovely beech-arched gateway rests the old parochial
church. In spite of restoration the age of six centuries is written
unmistakably on the massive square bell-tower, the thirteenth-century
traceries, and the rich old glass. It is gua