Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/228

 Well, I accept the reproach, and cling to my own opinion! It is strange how one sometimes takes a sudden dislike to a place or building as well as to a person, for no reason that we can possibly assign to ourselves; and for my own part, favourable or unfavourable, my first impression lasts. It is a clear case of—

I do not like thee, Dr. Fell— The reason why I cannot tell: But this I know, and know full well, I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.

Not being interested in the church, we wandered about the large and grass-grown graveyard, and amidst the moss-encrusted and lichen-laden tombstones, in search of any quaint epitaph that Time and man might have spared, for I regret to say that the despoiling hand of religious prudery is answerable for the deliberate destruction of sundry quaint epitaphs. A flagrant case of this came under my notice on a previous journey, when I learnt that the two concluding lines of a tombstone inscription had been purposely erased as being profane. By fortunate chance I was enabled, through a clergyman who had retained a copy of the sinning lines, to rescue them from oblivion; though, to be perfectly honest, I have to confess that the words of the obliterated lines were given to me for the purpose of justifying their removal! However, looking upon such things, as I ever endeavour to do, in the spirit of the age that dictated them, the condemned lines appeared innocent enough to me; but then, as a certain high church ecclesiastic once told me, in his