Bodli who is surprised by Kjartan's avengers in the sæter hut in the summer time, Gudrun only being with him. She went out to wash her linen in the stream as usual, while Bodli, after a gallant fight, was overpowered and slain.

Gudrun walked quietly home talking to the slayers, who justly thought that if she had cared much she would not have acted thus, but all the same she had doomed one to death in her own mind, and afterwards caused him to be slain. She married for the fourth time, a noble husband, who was evidently a man of high courage, whom she loved; when he was lost at sea she became, we are told, the first nun in Iceland. Long afterwards, when she was old and blind, it is said that her son Bodli, a middle-aged man home from Palestine, asked her one day about her four husbands. In a few words she described them, praising all but the first, who was a poor creature whom she divorced. And which, mother,' he asked, 'did you love the best?' She answered, 'To him I was worst whom I loved the

most.'

And this was Kjartan, who, according to the Saga, was buried at Borg, his mother's old home, when the first church there was new and all decked in white for its consecration. In the churchyard there is now an old Runic stone, on which can still be in part deciphered, Here lies the brave Kjartan slain by treachery.

It is quaintly told in the Saga that Kjartan was the first man who ever fasted through Lent in Iceland, and that people came to look at him, wondering that it did him no harm. The new power of Christianity is certainly more shown in his being apparently the first man there, who deliberately chose to endure viclence rather than to deal it-to accept death from his alienated friend rather than inflict it. It is interesting in this and some other Sagas to see how the influence of Christianity, even when, as the saying went, it was new in the land, is unconsciously brought out in contrast to the fierce spirit of revenge that was esteemed in heathen times.

Laxdæla is the finest of those Sagas which treat chiefly of love, but there are others, shorter, but full of charm. One 'Gunlang's Saga' has been translated by Magnusson and Morris, and with two others less authentic, called 'Three Northern Love Stories.'

A VILLAGE OF YESTERDAY.

A REMINISCENCE.

CHAPTER I.

I THINK a child's views of things are always worth preserving. It his outlook is narrower, the details are curiously vivid, and have a faculty for being photographed on the memory in such a way that no lapse of years makes any particular difference in their distinctness. And as real experiences are always more or less interesting, they are perhaps worthy of being committed to paper, especially if they are far enough back in the past to bring out incidentally any forgotten types of character, or record incidents which could scarcely happen nowadays, simply because of the progress which slowly but irrevocably changes every phase of life, and, more than all, village life. That is daily losing character and quaintness, in speech, manners, and general estimate of things; though, on the other hand, gaining in orderliness and culture. No doubt in the end everybody will reach a dead level of decorum, which will be gratifying to philanthropists, even if it is a little dull to those who remember the piquant eccentricities of the past.

The country rectory in which I was born was an average house of the period of fifty years ago. At the time it was built, Gothic architecture of the domestic order was a good deal ignored or, at any rate, not appreciated, and a square, useful dwelling was all that could be desired. This one was of pale pinkish brick, and it had one especial beauty which would scarcely be recognised as such, in these days. That was, that the roof was so flat that when a little way off you could not see it! This was thought a triumph of building art. But the ugliest brick packing-box can be softened by creepers, and a profusion of pink roses climbed up on the drawing-room side of the house, and red roses on the study side; and as a child I never could imagine a house with the reverse arrangement, i.e. red roses in front and pink at the side. The garden was full of evergreens, rather too. full I think now, but my mother loved them, and knew the history of every individual deodara and stone-pine.

Beyond the trim garden was the wilder orchard, of course much the most charming to us children. There were apple-trees branching down to the ground, under which we had homes, i.e. holes in the ground where we enacted plays with tin toy ducks for the dramatis personæ, and fabricated pottery, which was not the less charming for being excessively dirty and misshapen.

In winter a good deal of our outdoor life was passed in some large

grass fields only separated from the orchard by a ha-ha. These were laid out in billows (the word is sufficiently descriptive, though I believe the correct name for a grassy ridge of this sort and a space between, is a land and a balk'), by which laborious method the country used to be drained before drain-pipes were invented. There was one great advantage in the billows (so it seemed to us)-when you ran down the slight incline, the impetus was enough to send you up the next, a very satisfactory arrangement, by which all exertion was avoided and the law of compensation fully carried out.

Not being fond of animals, I do not recollect feeling any particular interest in the large long-woolled sheep which browsed in the fields, and were tended by an old man, by name Judd. I have a vivid mental picture of him, clad in a long mud-coloured coat, reaching nearly down to his heels, the said garment being of an indescribable texture, neither cloth, corduroy, nor linen, unless in some remote past it had been cloth, and the nap had so completely departed that the dust of ages had gathered in its place. No doubt he was thus attired in virtue of being a small tenant farmer, for the labourers all wore smock frocks on week-days, and for the same reason probably, he was distinguished by being called Mr.' Judd. The old man was of a serious and somewhat taciturn disposition, and paced over the fields with funereal solemity, the ship' and their ailments being probably a heavy weight on his mind and excluding all lighter subjects. I can only recall his discoursing on one other topic, and that was, how Mr. (I forget his name) had in bygone years laid out the fields in the above-mentioned billows, and as I firmly believed Mr. had done it all by himself, it seemed an Herculean feat, quite worth remembering. We never could get much out of Mr. Judd, his ideas seemed so completely centred in the fields, that we doubted if he realised the existence of strange farms, certainly of foreign countries. But on one occasion, when we asked him in a superior manner if he knew where our new governess came from, we were routed by his answering promptly, 'Swizzland.'

Though to be sure, that need not have been knowledge, but only the current report in the village, when our Mamselle made her appearance.

Mr. Judd had the character of being very near,' which with us meant stingy, and it was darkly hinted that our well-known neighbours, the sheep, when turned into mutton, were lean and unsatisfactory. Farming was then in its prosperous days, and a mint of money was supposed to be coined by every farmer, great and small. I can remember my mother pointing to some wheat-ricks near our house, and saying, with a slight air of mystery, that they were worth gold,' and I understood better later, how the symmetrical square masses were emblematic of the solid, comfortable fortunes built up by the frugal agriculturists of those days.

No doubt Mr. Judd had a secret store laid by in some hole or

corner, which for worlds he would not have revealed. He was never married, but a spare, lean, very clean old woman kept house for him, who bore the pretty old name of Nancy. Nancy possessed the only (and last) spinning-wheel in the parish, and I was often taken to see her spin. It was a wool-spinning wheel, and the spinner never sat down, but ambled perpetually backwards and forwards, turning the wheel with one hand and holding the thread deftly in the other, for a good deal of skill was required to keep the fine worsted from breaking. The coarser parts of the wool were spun into a thick white cable, which, cut into lengths, eventually became mops of a very durable kind. Are mops gone out of fashion with many other things? I rather suspect they are, and that 'trundling a mop,' i.e. turning it round and round on the bare arms with dizzy rapidity while the drops fly out in a circular shower, has become an extinct

art!

On the other side of our garden, only divided from it by a lane, was the churchyard. The lane led on past our gate to some allotments, known by the name of Laze Ferlin (probably a corruption of lease furlong), and two small fields, distinguished as the Manorbit and the Little Manorbit. But as the road here abruptly became a footpath, and was by no means a thoroughfare, it was little used, and the sound of wheels always brought our hearts into our mouths, as it betokened that somewhat rare event, company coming to call.

I do not know how old I was when I first stood at the gate to watch funerals pass into the churchyard. I must have been very young, for I remember wondering what was the many-legged, black monster which always walked first, and which I called in my own mind the elephant! Of course it was really the coffin, covered by the long black pall, and as the latter hung down and entirely concealed the heads and shoulders of the bearers, leaving only sundry black legs visible, perhaps my mistake was not so very astonishing after all!

It is curious how seldom children will speak about anything that inspires them with awe. For instance, I remember a fixed impression I had after my grandmother's death, which could have been removed in a moment if I had had courage to ask a question. She lived in a south-country rectory, and during the latter months of her life used to be drawn about the garden in a Bath-chair. A day or two after she died I was sent for to join my mother at my grandparents' home, and I recollect the thrill I felt at seeing the indistinct outline of the Bath-chair in the hall, covered over by a large brown-holland sheet. For I firmly believed my grandmother lay beneath it, and that this was of course the place (I cannot think what the impression was founded on) in which her body would be laid until it was buried. So complete was this conviction that I never thought of saying a word about it, though I should thereby have been saved a good deal of furtive dread in passing through the hall. When the funeral was over it was a great relief to me to see that some of the gentlemen

had thrown their over-coats upon the chair, as this was an additional proof that there was now nothing within. How gladly my kind mother would have set the whole matter right in my childish mind, in a moment, if only she had known!

To return to our Midland village. The mention of the churchyard leads me next to speak of the church, which saw no restoration until 1847. Of course there were the usual square pews, which, to judge by the abuse lavished on them for now half a century, one might imagine were an invention of the Evil one. No language is too severe to use in describing them, yet it is possible that, at the time square pews first came in use, they were neither wicked, nor utterly unreasonable things! Perhaps the primary idea was simply to keep off draughts! No churches in early days, so far as I know, had any warming apparatus, and, in the absence of fires, shelter is the next best thing, as every out-door labourer knows. Hence, the sheep-pen and the high hedge, which latter makes it nice and 'burrow' (i.e. sheltered) for the men as they sit down to their dinner behind it, in a sharp east wind. Thus shelter was also brought into churches, certainly in as ugly and angular a form as could well have been devised. There was also probably the idea that the better-class family or household should be hedged round and kept together, much as it was hedged round by invisible barriers during the week at home.

'Exclusive and unchristian,' here somebody exclaims! True, it would be inexcusable at the present day, when the gulf between classes is sensibly diminishing. But sometimes one doubts if the pew spirit has wholly departed, although the pew form has changed from reprehensible square to praiseworthy and desirable

narrow!

Well, our church had square pews, into which the congregation were securely fastened, Sunday after Sunday. As a child, I do not think I could have known much of the congregation in their weekday aspect, for some I can only recall as they looked in church. Or rather as their heads looked above the tops of the pews. Which shows, by-the-by, that the latter could not have been so extraordinarily high, or the short people would have been wholly invisible !

I remember thinking the chancel most beautiful when in 1847 it was restored and embellished with five new coloured windows. The east window was brilliant in colour, with the preponderance of yellow that is generally seen at that date. Yet the effect was not at all amiss; it was all dim and warm and glowing, a contrast to the cold white light which had made the former defects painfully visible. The figure of an angel with outspread wings filled me with beautiful thoughts of the guardianship of angels, and if the face of this one was somewhat hard in outline, and not altogether celestial in expression, it mattered little to me.

In the chancel there was now decided advance upon the square pews, as these were replaced by two long, narrow, still rather high,