Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/302

238 behaviour annoyed the citizens very much, and the result might have been serious, but the Mayor excused it. The affair was hushed up and everybody was pacified, including the maiden. Perhaps it is in token thereof that in the carving the Mayor puts his hand on her head.

To the right is the Castle approached by an imposing flight of steps; it has two towers and two wings, all battlemented, and the towers have conical roofs above the battlements. The courtyard is paved with large flagstones laid diamond wise, and there is a grove of trees on the spectator's right. In front of the Castle the lady appears again, still in the custody of the three halberdiers, who, perhaps, are escorting her to her home. A man in a tunic, whose head has perished, addresses the halberdiers. All the faces in this group are obliterated.

One would think that there were many more incidents which might be commemorated on the stone, but the work was evidently designed by a pacifist who thought all differences might be adjusted by conferences and speeches without the aid of lethal weapons. (Stones as hurled at Mr. Raleigh do not of course come into that category). Having no more peaceful scenes to record, the sculptor, by an unexpected transition, fills the remaining space with a group representing Susannah and the elders. This subject was extremely popular in the seventeenth century. It is the conventional well-known representation. The scene is a garden with trees, and in the middle a fountain with water playing. In front of the fountain is Susannah, lightly draped and with flowing hair, sitting on a stone bench with her feet in a large bath. The elders stand one on each side of Susannah; both have an intriguing expression, which is very skilfully rendered in work of so small a scale. One pulls his beard in uncertainty.

Below the bath is a double bounding line, perhaps intended to show that the group is distinct from the main subject. Below this again is a dog curled up asleep.

The lower edge of the chimneypiece may have formed a wide ogee curve, for there is a large gap, roughly triangular in shape, where the point of the ogee would have been. Some of the edge moulding remains fairly perfect on the left side; on the right it is more damaged. Some of