CHAPTER XXXIX

CHURCHES OF HOLLAND, EAST OF SPALDING

Weston—The Font—Fertile Country—Colman’s Factory—The Woad Plant—’Twixt Marsh and Fen—Moulton—The Spire—The Elloe Stone—Whaplode—Holbeach—Fleet—Gedney—The Mustard Fields—Long Sutton—Groups of Churches—Fossdyke Old Bridge—Kirton—Frampton—Wyberton—A Storm—Agricultural Statistics, 1913—A Legend of Holbeach.

The road which runs east from Spalding passes out of the county to reach King’s Lynn. But before it does so, it goes through a line of villages along which, within a distance of ten miles, are six of the finest churches which even Lincolnshire can show. Going out through Fulney we begin, less than four miles from Spalding, with _Weston_, where we find an unusually fine south porch with arcading and stone seats on either side. At the east end are three lancet lights of perfect Early English work and four slender buttresses. The nave dates from the middle of the twelfth century, and has stout round pillars in the south and octagonal in the north arcades, each set round with slender detached shafts as at Skirbeck, united under capitals carved with good stiff foliage. The aisles and transepts are later, and the tower later again.

The Early English font is a splendid specimen and stands on its original octagonal steps with half of the circle occupied by a broad platform for the priest. Two good old oak chests stand on either side of the tower arch, and near the south door two curious musical instruments of the oboe type are hanging, and seem to be worthy of more careful preservation.

[Sidenote: ‘MARSH’ AND ‘FEN’]

The whole of our route to-day lies through a perfectly flat land, mostly arable and of extraordinary fertility. The corn crops at the end of May were standing nearly two feet high, and all around bright squares of yellow made the air heavy with the scent of the mustard flower. I lately went all over the great mustard factory of Messrs. Colman at Norwich, in which the beauty and ingenuity of the machinery for making and labelling the tins, for filling bags and boxes, or for sorting and folding up in their proper papers the cubes of blue (of which there is a factory contiguous) were a perfect marvel. The works cover thirty-two acres, and everything needed for the business is made on the premises. The mustard of commerce is a mixture of the brown and the white, both of which, and especially the best brown, are grown in the greatest perfection in the fields round Holbeach. It is a valuable crop. In October, 1912, I saw a quotation of 10_s._ 6_d._ to 13_s._ 6_d._ a bushel for brown, and 8_s._ to 8_s._ 6_d._ for white; 1913 was a much better year, and so I suppose prices ruled higher. But to return.

Here and there we passed a field with an unfamiliar crop of stiff purplish plants which showed where the cultivation of the _Isatis tinctoria_, the woad plant, which added so much to the attractiveness of our earliest British ancestors, was still kept going. This flat country is not without its trees, and near the villages park-like meadows, the remains of ancient manors, showed a beautiful wealth of chestnut bloom, whilst the cottage gardens were gay with laburnum and pink May. This was especially the case with the most easterly villages of Holbeach, Gedney and Long Sutton, but all along this line of road from Weston to Sutton there were, at one time, manors of the Irby, Welby, Littlebury, and other families, of which nothing now remains but this heritage of trees. The line of road is a very remarkable one, for it divides what once might have been described as the waters that were above from the waters that were below; in other words the Fen from the Marsh. If you look at a good map you will see to the north of the road, from west to east successively, Pinchbeck Marsh, Spalding Marsh, Weston Marsh, Moulton Marsh, Whaplode Marsh, Holbeach Marsh, Gedney Marsh, Sutton Marsh, and Wingland Marsh. The last of these lies between Sutton Bridge and Cross-Keys, on the county boundary; and since the new outfall of the river Nene was cut, a rich tract has been gained for cultivation where once the sea had possession, and just where King John lost his baggage and treasure in his disastrous crossing of the Cross-Keys Wash, at low tide, shortly before his death in 1216. There is now a good road there.

Now look at the map again and you will see to the south of this Holbeach road the same names, but with _Fen_ instead of _Marsh_—Moulton, Whaplode, Holbeach, and Gedney _Fen_.

[Sidenote: RETIREMENT OF THE WASH]

The Marsh country is far the most interesting, and it is clear both from the nature of the land and from the names of the places that the Wash used to come several miles further inland than it does now, running up between Algarkirk and Gosberton as far as Bicker, and penetrating up the Welland estuary to “Surfleet seas end,” and up the Moulton river to “Moulton seas end,” to Holbeach Clough, to Lutton Gowt, which is north of Long Sutton on the Leam, and to the Roman bank which is still visible at Fleet and again further east between Cross-Keys and Walpole. This bank probably came by _Tydd St. Mary_, through which a Roman road from Cowbit also passed. But this was long ago, and many centuries elapsed before this Spalding and Lynn road, passing between Marsh and Fen, came into being, with its many magnificent churches, mostly the work of great monastic institutions between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and therefore built with exceptional magnificence.

[Sidenote: MOULTON]

After _Weston_ less than two miles, through a country brightened by the many red and white chestnut trees in bloom, brings us to _Moulton_, lying a little to the south of the main road. Here we have a beautiful Perpendicular tower and crocketed spire, reminding one, by its graceful proportions, of Louth, though not much more than half the height. The nave has six bays of Transition Norman work with pillars both round and clustered, resting on large millstone-like bases, the two western piers having tall responds built into them, which probably supported the arch of an earlier tower. The Early English carved foliage on the capitals is like that at Skirbeck, or in the Galilee Porch at Ely and the transept of York Cathedral. Some most graceful old work has been restored in the lower part of the rood-screen, and a new and well-designed canopy added. The doorway to this rood-loft is on the south side. A curious old oak alms-box is near the south door, and against the western pier of the north arcade is a singular font which has been displaced by a modern square one of no particular merit. In the older one the bowl stands on the trunk of a tree carved in stone, on either side of which are figures about three feet high of Adam and Eve, and the Serpent is curling round the tree.[36] The wooden cover with the figure of a stout Rubens angel flying and grasping the top has fallen into disrepair. A list of the vicars from 1237 is in the north aisle.

The clerestory windows are handsomely arcaded outside, with round Norman arcading on the south and pointed arcades on the north side, and ugly Perpendicular windows inserted at intervals which occupy the space of two arcades.

The great beauty of the church is the Perpendicular tower and spire, built about 1380. It has four stages, and over the great west window are some canopied niches, two of which still contain their statues. The buttresses have also niches and canopies, and the tower finishes with a rich battlement and pinnacles which are connected with the spire by light flying-buttresses; the whole is beautifully proportioned, and as it stands in a very wide street one can get a satisfactory view of it.

The dividing of each side by set-off string courses, three on the west and four on the north and south sides, the canopy work of the buttresses at each stage, the pleasing varieties in the size of the windows, the canopied arcading on the west front, the panelled parapet and deep cornice, the elegant pinnacles at the corners of the coped battlements from which the light flying-buttresses spring up to the richly ornamented spire, all help to delight and satisfy the eye in a manner which few churches in any county can hope to rival.

In a bridge half a mile from the church on the south side of a lane called ‘Old Spalding Gate,’ or ‘Elloe Stone lane,’ at the fifth milestone from Spalding, still stands _the Elloe Stone_.

The Shire Mote or hundred court of the Elloe Wapentake, which is a huge one embracing the whole of Holland between the Welland and the Nene, used to be held at the four cross-roads near this stone, in pre-Norman times. The manor courts were introduced by the Normans.

Boy Scouts were very much in evidence when we were in Moulton; they number over thirty there alone, and I never saw a smarter lot.

[Sidenote: WHAPLODE]

From Moulton we get back to the main road and go on two short miles to _Whaplode_. In Domesday Book this is spelt Quappelode, the cape on the lode or creek, the village being built on a spit of land elevated above the fens and encircled by drains, or lodes, to keep it free from inundation.

[Illustration: _Whaplode Church._]

The church here was built by the abbot of Croyland in rivalry with Moulton, which was the work of the prior of Spalding. The nave, of no less than seven bays, is narrow and 110 feet long, and exhibits in the low chancel arch and four adjoining arcades quite the most interesting Norman work in ‘Holland.’ The massive Norman pillars are built in pairs of different patterns. The three western arches are Transitional and pointed; of this period the chief feature is the west door with a fine series of mouldings and a double row of eight detached shafts on either side, set one behind the other.

The tower is very fine and is in a most unusual position, being south of the eastmost bay of the south aisle and almost detached, though once joined by a transept. We quite agree with Mr. Jeans when he says “Probably it was intended to have two transeptal towers like Exeter and Ottery, the only two churches in England with them, but a late Perpendicular transept occupies the place of the North one.” The lower Transition stage is richly arcaded, the next two Early English stages have lancet arcading, and the belfry stage, which is early Decorated, has coupled lights and a parapet above them. The choir-screen stood, curiously, a bay in front of the rood loft, the stairs to which are on the south side. The pulpit is Jacobean, the font a copy of a Norman one, the chancel is of the meanest, and all the windows except one at the east of the north aisle are incredibly ugly. Some stone coffins are placed in the west end, where also is the fine canopied monument of Sir Anthony and Lady Elizabeth Irby with large figures of their children kneeling at the side. See _Ashby-cum-Fenby_, p. 267.

[Sidenote: HOLBEACH]

Another three miles along this wonderful line of grand churches brings us to the church of All Saints, _Holbeach_, a magnificent building all in the latest Decorated style throughout. The spire without crockets, though higher than Moulton, is rather dwarfed by the large tower without pinnacles. The nave is very spacious and light, having large aisle windows with no stained glass, and no less than fourteen pairs of clerestory windows. The flamboyant tracery in the east window is very good. The nave has seven very lofty bays on tall, light, clustered pillars, and the eastern bay does not reach the chancel arch, but leaves a wall space of six feet to accommodate the requirements of the rood loft. There is a very large north porch of singular construction, with heavy, round battlemented turrets like the flanking bastions of a castle gateway. Above is a parvise. In the north aisle is a well-preserved altar tomb to Sir Humphrey Littlebury, _c._ 1400, and two brasses; one of Joanna Welbye, 1458, for both these families once had manors at Holbeach.

[Illustration: _Fleet Church._]

The approach to the town is through a well-wooded country, and a row of pink chestnuts in bloom lined the churchyard, as we saw it early in June. Like Moulton, the parish is a very large one, containing, according to Murray, 21,000 acres of land and 14,000 of water. Somewhere in this huge parish was born, in 1687, William Stukeley, the antiquarian, who became in his later years the rector of Somerby, near Grantham.

The “Legend of Holbeach” was probably unknown to him, but it is of some antiquity, and it is printed at the end of the chapter in the rhyming form which was given to it more than a hundred years ago by Thomas Rawnsley of Bourne, D.L.

[Sidenote: A DETACHED SPIRE]

A mile off the road to the right, is seen the spire of _Fleet_ church. This, too, is mainly in the Decorated style with Early English arcades and a Perpendicular west window. The tower stands apart from the rest of the church at an interval of fifteen feet. Other instances of detached towers are at Evesham in Worcestershire, at Elstow near Bedford, and, I think, at Terrington in Norfolk; but a detached spire is very rarely seen.

All the churches on the main road are at intervals of three miles, and that distance will bring us to the tall slender Giotto-like tower of _Gedney_, ninety feet high with very small buttresses. This, like Whaplode, was built, by the abbots of Croyland. The spacious nave has twelve Perpendicular three-light clerestory windows of unusual beauty, divided by pinnacles rising above the parapet. There are six lofty bays and a fine Early English tower arch. As at Holbeach and Sutton, there is a parvise over the south porch. The tower was to have had a spire instead of its present little spirelet, but only the base of it was built. Possibly this was because the foundations were not trustworthy, and, indeed, it may be said to have no foundations but to be built on a raft in the peat bog on which it floats securely, as did Winchester Cathedral before the deep drainage trench was cut along the north side of the close. At Gedney, if you jump on the floor of the porch you will distinctly perceive the vibration of the ground.

It is enriched at the first stage by lancet windows, then by an arcading with pointed arches, above which come beautiful twin windows, each with two lights; and the upper, Decorated, stage of the tower—above the line where the Black Death so obviously and effectually stopped the work, as described in the next chapter—has two lofty canopied and transomed windows in each face, which give a very handsome appearance. There is no west door.

[Illustration: _Gedney Church._]

[Sidenote: GEDNEY]

Within is a ‘low-side’ window at the south-west end of the chancel which is sometimes called an ‘Ichnoscope,’ and in the vestry is a ‘squint.’ A thirteenth-century cross-legged knight, the fine brass of a lady (1390), recently discovered, and the richly coloured alabaster monument of Adlard and Cassandra Welby (1590) are all worthy of notice; while the abbots’ inscription over the door, “Pax Xti sit huic domui et omnibus habitantibus in ea, hic requies nostra,” is to be contrasted with the worldly-wise motto of John Petty on the old bell-metal door lock, “Be Ware before, avyseth Johannes Pette.” Let into the door is a very remarkable crucifixion in ivory.

[Sidenote: THE MUSTARD FIELDS]

As we left Gedney and looked back over the fields the tall and Italian-looking campanile, whose bells, however, cannot vie with the eight bells of Holbeach, made a unique and memorable picture. I doubt if there is anything quite like it in England. We passed on eastwards another three miles by Gedney Marsh, with its “Cock and Magpie” inn, while the strong summer scent of the brilliant mustard fields recalled the apt description of our great Lincolnshire poet:

“All the land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, Smelt of the coming Summer.”

As with Shakespeare, once let anything be described by Tennyson, and no other form of words can ever again seem so fit and inevitable. How often does one notice this!

[Sidenote: GROUPS OF FINE CHURCHES]

But now we are at _Long Sutton_, or Sutton St. Mary’s, and find there perhaps the most interesting of this wonderful sequence of exceptional churches.

Again we have a long nave of seven bays, with Norman pillars, both round and octagonal. A flat Norman arch to the chancel, and on each side of the chancel a slender column and two tall arches leading to chancel transepts. The rood staircase goes up from the pulpit on the north side, and above the nave arcades is a Transitional clerestory with arcading, which now serves as a triforium, being surmounted by another clerestory of the Perpendicular period; indeed the outside of the church, from its aisle and clerestory windows, has just the appearance of a Perpendicular building, so that when on entering one finds oneself in a fine Norman nave, the sight, as Mr. Jeans says, is quite startling.

[Illustration: _Long Sutton Church._]

At the north-east angle is a curious two-storied octagonal vestry, or sacristy, with a winding stair of fourteenth century date, having a small window into the chancel. The tower is Early English and is curiously placed at the south-west angle of the south aisle. That at Whaplode is at the south-east angle. Both tower and spire are in their original condition (the latter of timber covered with lead) and are the best and earliest specimens of their period. The tower stands on four magnificent arches now blocked, above which outside is a rich arcading like that in the north transept of Wells Cathedral. Above this the belfry windows are double, having a three-light window inside, with a two-light window outside, the mullion coming down to the outer edge of the splay; a very unusual arrangement. The spire is clasped at each corner by a spirelet, and rises to the height of 162 feet. Altogether this church is the fitting crown to our long string of stately churches. There are larger single churches with twelve to even twenty clerestory windows in Norfolk and Suffolk, but I doubt if any group in the kingdom can rival these, though the Sleaford group runs them hard. And certainly the Marsh churches between Boston and Wainfleet, and the still more characteristic group round Burgh-le-Marsh and Theddlethorpe have a charm—owing a good deal to their old oak fittings—which “can only be described in superlatives.” Next to these for interest I would put the Pinchbeck group in the triangle formed by Boston, Spalding, and Donington, and the group of old pre-Norman towers like Clee which are found near together to the south and west of Grimsby. Of course, Lincoln Minster with Stow, Grantham with Hough-on-the-Hill, Boston Stump, and Louth spire, stand outside every group in unapproachable greatness. Long Sutton is not without neighbours. Two miles to the north is _Lutton_, where Dr. Busby, the famous headmaster of Westminster, was born. He died in 1695. The large inlaid Italian pulpit with elegant canopy, put up in 1702, was probably his gift.

Three miles east is _Sutton bridge_, only separated from Norfolk by the uninhabited Wingland Marsh, while three miles to the south is the village of _Tydd-St.-Mary_, the last village on the Wisbech road which is in Lincolnshire, _Tydd-St.-Giles_ being over the border in Cambridgeshire; for both Norfolk and Cambridge here touch the county; Wisbech, which is itself the centre of a grand group of churches, being in the latter county.

[Sidenote: OLD FOSDYKE BRIDGE]

To finish our day and get into “the parts of Lindsey,” we take the north road from Holbeach over Fosdyke bridge to Boston. In the church at _Fosdyke_ we may see a remarkable font with a tall Perpendicular oak cover similar, but not equal in beauty, to that at Frieston.

Before 1814, people who wished to go from Boston into the eastern half of Holland and on to Cambridge and Norfolk had to cross the Welland estuary by ferry or go round by Spalding, but in 1811 an Act was passed for erecting a bridge at Fosdyke Wash and making a causeway to it over the sands. The work was designed by Rennie, who had an excellent patron in Sir Joseph Banks. The account of it, written at the time, is curious. The bridge was 300 feet long and had eight openings, the three in mid-stream being thirty feet wide, and the centre one opened with two leaves, which, having a counterpoise, were easily moved from a horizontal to a perpendicular position by means of a large rack-wheel and pinion wound by a common hand-winch. The nine piers were each made of oak trees driven in whole in clusters of six. These trees were none of them less than thirty feet long and eighteen inches in diameter, rather larger than the beams used to carry the floors in Tattershall Castle.[37] Those in the four central piers were enormous, being forty-two feet long and nineteen inches in diameter. They were driven in twenty to twenty-two feet below the bottom of the river and bolted together with timbers a foot thick. All was carried out in oak, the roadway planks being three inches thick. I went to see this stout old timber bridge and was disgusted to find that a grey-painted iron structure had taken its place.

From Fosdyke the road passes Algarkirk and strikes the Spalding and Boston main road at Sutterton, where it turns north to _Kirton_. After passing Kirton—the magnificent church of which place was so strangely altered and mutilated by a ruthless architect called Hayward, in 1804, who pulled down its noble central tower and its double-aisled transept and built of the old materials a handsome but new tower at the west end—we soon see on the right, first Frampton and then Wyberton, the latter only about a mile south of Boston.

[Sidenote: FRAMPTON AND WYBERTON]

_Frampton_, once cruciform with a good tower and spire, has lost its north transept, its tall Early English pillars now support arches of a later style, but a fine oak roof and tall screen remain. There is an odd monument of ecclesiastical power on a buttress outside at the angle of the transept. A figurehead grotesquely carved, with the inscription, “Wot ye whi I sta̅d her [know ye, why I stand here] for I forswor my Savior ego Ricardus in Angulo,” probably a lasting reference to some ecclesiastical penance.

Frampton Hall, a good Queen Anne house, is close to the church. Here, as in several of the Marsh churches, rings to tie horses to during service may be seen in the wall. Not a mile away northwards is _Wyberton_, which, if built as planned, would have been a very fine edifice. When it was restored by G. Scott, Jun., in 1881, the floor of the chancel being lowered brought to light two magnificent pillar bases. These, with the grand chancel arch, are indications that a fine cruciform church was projected but apparently never carried out. Tall arcades with clustered and octagonal columns and a good Perpendicular roof with carved bosses and angels are there now, and signs that an earlier building existed are visible in stones either lying loose or built into the walls. A slab to Adam Frampton is dated 1325.

The font is a very rich one of the same period as those to the north-east of Boston, at Benington and Leverton. _The registers begin as early as 1538._ We pass now through Boston, and crossing the sluice bridge, get a fine view of the tall tower by the water-side and soon strike the Sibsey and Spilsby road.

A grand black thunder-cloud rolls up across the fen, and having discharged a tempest of hailstones on the Wolds, descends upon us between Sibsey and Stickney in torrents of rain. It passes, and the bright sunshine—the “clear shining after rain” of the Hebrew prophet—contrasted with the darkness of the moving thunder-clouds as they roll seawards, makes a fine picture, and one which in that flat land you can watch for miles as it moves.

[Sidenote: AGRICULTURAL RETURNS]

The agricultural statistics for Lincolnshire in 1913 show that there were in Lindsey about 860,000, in Kesteven 419,560, and in Holland 243,200 acres under cultivation. The various crops in each were in thousands of acres as follows:—

+-----------+-------------------------------------------------------+ | |Wheat. | | | +------------------------------------------------+ | | |Oats. | | | | +-----------------------------------------+ | | | |Barley. | | | | | +----------------------------------+ | | | | |Beans and Peas. | | | | | | +---------------------------+ | | | | | |“Roots.” | | | | | | | +--------------------+ | | | | | | |Potatoes. | | | | | | | | +-------------+ | | | | | | | |Clover, | | | | | | | | |Vetches &c. | | | | | | | | | +------+ | | | | | | | | |Other | | | | | | | | | |crops.| +-----------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+ |In Lindsey | 79 | 69½ | 125½ | 24 | 83¼ | 27 | 109 | 7 | | ” Kesteven| 44½ | 24 | 67½ | 17½ | 34½ | 8½ | 46¼ | 3¾ | | ” Holland | 35 | 23 | 18 | 17¼ | 7 | 40⅓ | 15 | 12¾ | +-----------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+

The table shows that Holland grows a good deal of wheat and oats, but not much barley compared with the two other divisions, and very few “roots.” But in 1913 it grew 40,370 acres of potatoes, which is 5,000 acres more than all the rest of the county; and this was a decrease on the previous year’s crop of 2,479 acres. Then the big item in Holland under “other crops” shows the mustard, while 2,500 acres in that column for Lindsey are taken up with “rape.” The amount of bare fallow last year was, in Lindsey, 22,940 acres; in Kesteven, 15,385; and in Holland, 5,311. This, and the number of horses employed on the land—Lindsey, 26,930; Kesteven, 12,412; Holland, 10,892—when it is remembered that the acreage of the three divisions is in the proportion of 4, 2, and 1, shows how highly cultivated the Lincolnshire fen-land in Holland is. The arable land in that division is more than two-thirds of the whole acreage.

Another thing this report brings out is the marked decrease in 1913 in the number of cattle, sheep and pigs, and especially of sheep in every part of the county. This decrease was—

+--------------+---------+---------+-------+ | | Cattle. | Sheep. | Pigs. | +--------------+---------+---------+-------+ | In Lindsey | 8,672 | 35,516 | 1,002 | | ” Kesteven | 5,675 | 10,462 | 2,801 | | ” Holland | 3,664 | 9,587 | 4,638 | +--------------+---------+---------+-------+ | Total | 18,011 | 55,565 | 8,441 | +--------------+---------+---------+-------+

This shows that Holland suffered more decrease in proportion than the other two divisions in all respects, and especially in the number of pigs. Of course the season must always be answerable for a good deal, and the numbers may all go up this year. But the enormous drop in the number of cattle and sheep, telling a tale of the absence of “roots” and “feed,” will hardly be made good in one year.

[Sidenote: THE REVELLERS]

[Sidenote: “A LEGEND OF HOLBECH”]

“A LEGEND OF HOLBECH”

a true story.

Made into this rhyme by Mr. Rawnsley of Bourne, about the year 1800.

In the bleak noxious Fen that to Lincoln pertains Where agues assert their fell sway, There the Bittern hoarse moans and the seamew complains As she flits o’er the watery way.

While with strains thus discordant, the natives of air With screams and with shrieks the ear strike, The toad and the frog croaking notes of despair Join the din, from the bog and the dyke.

Mid scenes that the senses annoy and appal Sad and sullen old Holbech appears, As if doomed to bewail her hard fate from the Fall, Like a Niobe washed with her tears.

From fogs pestilential that hovered around, To ward off despair and disease, The juice of the grape was most generous found, Source of comfort, of joy, and of ease.

At the “Chequers” long famed to quaff then did delight The Burghers both ancient and young, With smoking and cards, passed the dull winter night, They joked and they laughed and they sung.

Three revellers left, when the midnight was come, Unable their game to pursue, Repaired, most unhallowed, to visit the tomb Where enshrouded lay one of their crew.

For _he_, late-departed, renowned was at whist, The marsh-men still tell of his fame, Till Death with a spade struck the cards from his fist And spoiled both his hand and his game.

Cold and damp was the night; thro’ the churchyard they prowled, As wolves by fierce hunger subdued, ’Gainst the doors they huge gravestones impetuous rolled Which recoiled at such violence rude.

From the sepulchre’s jaws their old comrade uncased, (How chilling the tale to relate), Upreared ’gainst the wall on the table was placed A corpse, in funereal state.

By a taper’s faint blaze and with Luna’s faint light That would sometimes emit them a ray, The cards were produced, and they cut with delight To know who with “_Dumby_” should play.

Exalted on basses the bravoes kneeled round Exulting and proud of the deed, To Dumby they bent with respect most profound And said “Sir! it is _your_ turn to lead.”

The game then commenced, when one offered him aid, And affected to guide his cold hand While another cried out, “Bravo! Dumby, well played, I see you’ve the cards at command.”

Thus impious, they jokèd devoid of all grace, When dread sounds shook the walls of the church, And lo! Dumby sank down, and a ghost in his place Shrieked dismal “Haste! haste! save your lurch!”

Astounded they stared; but the fiend disappeared And Dumby again took his seat, So they deemed ’twas but fancy, nor longer they feared But swore that “Old Dumb should be beat.”

Eight to nine was the game, Dumby’s partner called loud “Speak once, my old friend, or we’re done Remember our stake ’tis my coat or your shroud Now answer and win—_can you one?_”[38]

“What silent, my Dumby, when most I you need Dame Fortune our wishes has crossed,” When a voice from beneath, howled, “your fate is decreed The game and the gamesters are lost.”

Then strange! most terrific and horrid to view! Three Demons thro’ earth burst their way: Each one chose his partner, his arms round him threw And vanished in smoke with his prey.

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