49, expressing regret for
having participated in the execution of his sovereign. We are further
told in the traditions of the house that when all the relatives were
assembled for the funeral, and the courtyard was crowded with equipages,
another coach, gorgeously ornamented and drawn by black horses, solemnly
approached the porch: when it halted, the door opened, and, clad in his
shroud, the shade of Stephens glided into the carriage; the door was
closed by an unseen hand, and the coach moved off, the driver being a
beheaded man, arrayed in royal vestments and wearing the insignia of the
Star and Garter. Passing the gateway of the courtyard, the equipage
vanished in flames. Tradition maintains also that every lord of
Chavenage dying in the manor-house since has departed in the same awful
manner.

The Thames flows on after its junction with the Churn, and receives
other pretty streams, all coming out of the Cotswolds. The Coln and the
Leche, coming in near Lechlade, swell its waters sufficiently to make it
navigable for barges, and the river sets up a towing-path, for here the
canal from the Severn joins it. The river passes in solitude out of
Gloucestershire, and then for miles becomes the boundary between
Oxfordshire on the north and Berkshire on the south. The canal has been
almost superseded by the railway, so that passing barges are rare, but
the towing-path and the locks remain, with an occasional rustic dam
thrown across the gradually widening river. In this almost deserted
region is the isolated hamlet of Shifford, where King Alfred held a
parliament a thousand years ago. Near it is the New Bridge, a solid
structure, but the oldest bridge that crosses the Thames, for it was
"new" just six hundred years ago. The Thames then receives the Windrush
and the Evenlode, and it passes over frequent weirs that have become
miniature rapids, yet not too dangerous for an expert oarsman to guide
his boat through safely. Thus the famous river comes to Bablock Hythe
Ferry, and at once enters an historic region.

STANTON HARCOURT AND CUMNOR HALL.

[Illustration: DOVECOTE, STANTON HARCOURT.]

A short distance from the ferry in Oxfordshire is Stanton Harcourt, with
its three upright sandstones, "the Devil's Coits," supposed to have been
put there to commemorate a battle between the Saxons and the Britons
more than twelve centuries ago. The village gets its name from the large
and ancient mansion of the Harcourts, of which, ho