Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/415

Rh The very streets are like the crooked seams of the ancient robe, and on them are worked fabrics that harmonize as well with these century-worn buildings as the pictures in the tapestry of St. Mary's Hall do with that edifice. These seams or winding streets, lanes, courts, and alleys twist in and out in the most interesting way, bringing you up against all sorts of unexpected angles and niches. And there is the curious image of Peeping Tom grinning out upon all the fingers of scorn that have been pointed at him for so many generations. As he looks down from an upper window of a corner house upon the main street, he wears the very face of a conscious, as an outlaw that has sinned against the best sex in the world more outrageously than any man in history. Of course a town with two such churches and a guildhall like St. Mary's would have a great variety of charities, benevolent and educational institutions. Ford's Hospital is as unique in its way as any of the same date and object to be found in England. It was founded in 1529 by William Ford, and the building must have been erected very soon afterwards, for it looks quite three hundred years old, and as if it might endure for as many centuries to come. It is a rare specimen of the architecture of its time, and will probably be preserved as such as long as it is able to stand upright. It is of the old skeleton order, or that