We were walking together, Father Payne and I. It was in the early summer—­a still, hot day.  The place, as I remember it, was very beautiful.  We crossed the stream by a little foot-bridge, and took a bypath across the meadows; up the slope you came to a beautiful bit of old forest country, the trees of all ages, some of them very ancient; there were open glades running into the heart of the woodland, with thorn thickets and stretches of bracken.  Hidden away in the depth of the woods, and approached only by green rides, were the ruins of what must have been a big old Jacobean mansion; but nothing remained of it except some grassy terraces, a bit of a fine facade of stone with empty windows, half-hidden in ivy, and some tall stone chimney-stacks.  The forest lay silent and still; and, along one of the branching rides, you could discern far away a glimpse of blue hills.  The scene was so entirely beautiful that we had gradually ceased to talk, and had given ourselves up to the sweet and quiet influence of the place.

We stood for awhile upon one of the terraces, looking at the old house, and Father Payne said, “I’m not sure that I approve of the taste for ruins; there is something to be said for a deserted castle, because it is a reminder that we do not need to safeguard ourselves so much against each others’ ill-will; but a roofless church or a crumbling house—­there’s something sad about them.  It seems to me a little like leaving a man unburied in order that we may come and sentimentalise over his bones.  It means, this house, the decay of an old centre of life—­there’s nothing evil or cruel about it, as there is about a castle; and I am not sure that it ought not to be either repaired or removed—­

  “’And doorways where a bridegroom trode
  Stand open to the peering air.’”

“I don’t know,” I said; “I’m sure that this is somehow beautiful.  Can’t one feel that nature is half-tender, half-indifferent to our broken designs?”

“Perhaps,” said Father Payne, “but I don’t like being reminded of death and waste—­I don’t want to think that they can end by being charming—­the vanity of human wishes is more sad than picturesque.  I think Dr. Johnson was right when he said, ’After all, it is a sad thing that a man should lie down and die.’”

A little while afterwards he said, “How strange it is that the loneliness of this place should be so delightful!  I like my fellow-beings on the whole—­I don’t want to avoid them or to abolish them—­but yet it is one of the greatest luxuries in the world to find a place where one is pretty sure of not meeting one of them.”

“Yes,” I said, “it is very odd!  I have been feeling to-day that I should like time to stand still this summer afternoon, and to spend whole days in rambling about here.  I won’t say,” I said with a smile, “that I should prefer to be quite alone; but I shouldn’t mind even that in a place like this.  I never feel like that in a big town—­there is always a sense of hostile currents there.  To be alone in a town is always rather melancholy; but here it is just the reverse.”