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 benefactor of the church; but this is pure conjecture on my part, and conjectures must be taken for what they are worth.

The head of the statue, we were informed, was not the original one, which had decayed away or had been broken off, so that at the time of the restoration of the church the figure was headless: "However," we were informed, "the builder, curiously enough, had some old carved stone heads knocking about his yard, and he fitted on one of these in place of the missing one"! Thus is the lot of the future antiquary made hard: but this is not so blameworthy as an instance that came under my notice on a previous tour, when I discovered that a mason had inserted an ancient dated stone over the porch of an old house he had been called in to repair, solely because he had it on hand and thought it looked ornamental there! This was enough to deceive the very archæological elect! I have to confess that the new head supplied to Master Thomas Purden appeared to be, from our point of view below, a good "ready-made" fit; but therein lies the greater pitfall for the future antiquary aforementioned.

"Now," exclaimed the rector, "you will doubtless wonder why the figure with such an appeal to the public was placed on the side of the tower facing the meadows, and not on the side facing the road." As a matter of fact this detail had not occurred to us; one cannot think of everything—though we tried to look surprised at the fact—then the rector continued, apparently pleased by