Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/204

196 eagle displayed, with two heads, the legs resting on two gates, a crescent between, an imperial crown surmounting—these are the arms of the Greek Empire, the two gates are Rome and Constantinople. The question is, how it came where you found it? It was covered with plaster, you say, and the plaster whitewashed? Did you discover anything near it?"

Upon this I told him of the frescoes and charcoal drawings, and roughly described them.

His fingers began to drum upon the table.

"Have you any documents which might tell us when the wall was first plastered?"

"The parish accounts go back to 1594—here they are: the Registers to 1663 only. I keep them in the vestry. I can find no mention of plastering, but the entries of expenditure on whitewashing occur periodically, the first under the year 1633." I turned the old pages and pointed to the entry "Ite' paide to George mason for a dayes work about the churche after the Jew had been, and white wassche is vjd."

"A Jew? But a Jew had no business in England in those days. I wonder how and why he came." My visitor took the old volume and ran his finger down the leaf, then up, then turned back a page. "Perhaps this may explain it," said he. "Ite' deliuēd Mr. Beuill to make puīsion for the companie of a fforeste barke ye came ashoare iiis ivd." He broke off, with a finger on the entry, and rose. "Pray forgive me, sir; I had taken your chair."