The lives of many of those old scholars and worthies had become familiar
to him, since he had read Anthony à Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_, and he
had gone sometimes with his friend on antiquarian walks about Oxford,
and the colleges Wood described. Or Gerard would lend him a horse, and
they would ride out to visit the historic places and villages that lie
in the old country about--Woodstock, Cumnor, Abingdon--the names were
familiar to him of long date; had he not first read of some of them, and
the scenes they were famous for, in Jones' _Excelsior Reader_, out in
Indiana as a boy?
He spoke of the village churches, that seemed so beautiful on those June
afternoons, as they stood among their old trees and flowers, with the
white clouds in the sky above, a shiver of wind in the long grass over
the graves. And then, through the scent of roses about the open door,
the dim interior, with its white Norman arches, and light falling from
painted windows on the crusaders' tombs--on all the many monuments of
the dead. The dead! Sutton wrote that he had always known of the times
gone by, and the faith of the Middle Ages, but only in an unreal way,
through books. And it made such a difference--to him at least--if he saw
the proof of a thing, actually existing with the daylight on it!
"Once, Gerard says, these churches were filled in the morning and
evening light with labouring people kneeling in silent prayer. But that,
of course, was in the Dark Ages. Gerard thinks that the world has done
nothing but go back since the Middle Ages; certainly he does hate
everything that is modern. How he will detest Parnassus City, if he
comes to see me there, as he says he will. It has been bad for him, I am
sure, living out of the world, as he has lived, among old memories and
dreams of his own. He is a Catholic, you know, but he respects my
religion; he knows, of course, what my views are, and we never talk
about theology. There is a friend of his I meet sometimes a priest, and
I suppose a Jesuit. But he seems really quite a cultivated person."
Foley took up another letter: They had ridden out, Sutton wrote, to an
old country house and park, where Charles I. had stayed once, while
Parliament was being held in Oxford. The house, all save one wing, now a
farm-house, had been torn down; but on the hill overlooking the lake, in
the midst of the green shade of beeches, the chapel was still standing,
abandoned now, and almost untouched, save by decay and time, since the
polite court of the Stuarts had said their worldly devotions there. What
rich brocades, what hushed gallantries and frivolous prayers had once
rustled and whispered under the graceful high arches of those pews! But
birds had their nests there now, he said, while through the decaying
roof the rain dripped down on the frail woodwork, the classic columns
and fading colours of this deserted place of elegant worship and old
fashion.
The American Puritan confessed to a certain tenderness for the generous
lost cause, for the fine futile courage of the gay Cavaliers and lovely
forgotten ladies. And as they rode homeward through the twilight, his
companion sang snatches of some old Cavalier songs--tunes with a certain
pathos and grace in their gallant wistful music.