Monday, November 6th.

We had been very comfortable at our hotel, where I had spent a very pleasant birthday at Oxford, and was sorry that we could not stay another day.  But the winter was within measurable distance, with its short days and long dark nights, and we could no longer rely upon the moon to lighten our way, for it had already reached its last quarter.  We therefore left Oxford early in the morning by the Abingdon Road, and soon reached the southern entrance to the city, where in former days stood the famous tower from which Roger Bacon, who died in 1292, and who was one of the great pioneers in science and philosophy, was said to have studied the heavens; it was shown to visitors as “Friar Bacon’s study.”

[Illustration:  FRIAR BACON’S STUDY, FOLLEY BRIDGE, OXFORD.]

A strange story was told relating to that wonderful man, from which it appeared he had formed the acquaintance of a spirit, who told him that if he could make a head of brass in one month, so that it could speak during the next month, he would be able to surround England with a wall of brass, and thus protect his country from her enemies.  Roger Bacon, on hearing this, at once set to work, and with the aid of another philosopher and a demon the head was made; but as it was uncertain at what time during the next month it would speak, it was necessary to watch it.  The two philosophers, therefore, watched it night and day for three weeks, and then, getting tired, Bacon ordered his man Myles to watch, and waken him when it spoke.  About half an hour after they had retired the head spoke, and said, “Time is,” but Myles thought it was too early to tell his master, as he could not have had sleep enough.  In another half-hour the head spoke again, and said, “Time was,” but as everybody knew that, he still did not think fit to waken his master, and then half an hour afterwards the head said, “Time is past,” and fell down with a tremendous crash that woke the philosophers:  but it was now too late!  What happened afterwards, and what became of Myles, we did not know.

In the neighbouring village of North Hinksey, about a mile across the meadows, stands the Witches’ Elm.  Of the Haunted House beside which it stood hardly even a trace remained, its origin, like its legend, stretching so far back into the “mists of antiquity” that only the slenderest threads remained.  Most of the villages were owned by the monks of Abingdon Abbey under a grant of the Saxon King Caedwalla, and confirmed to them by Caenwulf and Edwig.  The Haunted House, like the Church of Cumnor, was built by the pious monks, and remained in their possession till the dissolution of the monastery, then passing into the hands of the Earls of Abingdon.

[Illustration:  THE WITCHES’ ELM.]

The last tenant of the old house was one Mark Scraggs, or Scroggs, a solitary miser who, the story goes, sold himself to the Devil, one of the features of the compact being that he should provide for the wants of three wise women, or witches, who on their part were to assist him in carrying out his schemes and make them successful.  In everything he seemed to prosper, and accumulated great hoards of wealth, but he had not a soul in the world to leave it to or to regret his leaving in spite of his wealth.