Another pleasant afternoon trip was to Monken Hadley, twenty-five miles out on the Great North Road.  Hadley Church is intimately associated with a number of distinguished literary men, among them Thackeray, whose grandfather preached there and is buried in the churchyard.  The sexton was soon found and he was delighted to point out the interesting objects in the church and vicinity.

The church stands at the entrance of a royal park, which is leased to private parties and is one of the quaintest and most picturesque of the country churches we had seen.  Over the doors, some old-fashioned figures which we had to have translated indicated that the building had been erected in 1494.  It has a huge ivy-covered tower and its interior gives every evidence of the age-lasting solidity of the English churches.

Hadley Church has a duplicate in the United States, one having been built in some New York town precisely like the older structure.  We noticed that one of the stained-glass windows had been replaced by a modern one, and were informed that the original had been presented to the newer church in America—­a courtesy that an American congregation would hardly think of, and be still less likely to carry out.  An odd silver communion service which had been in use from three to five hundred years was carefully taken out of a fire-proof safe and shown us.

Hadley Church is a delight from every point of view, and it is a pity that such lines of architecture are not oftener followed in America.  Our churches as a rule are shoddy and inharmonious affairs compared with those in England.  It is not always the matter of cost that makes them so, since more artistic structures along the pleasing and substantial lines of architecture followed in Britain would in many cases cost no more than we pay for such churches as we now have.

[Illustration:  Hadley church, Monken Hadley.]

Our friend the sexton garrulously assured us that Thackeray had spent much of his time as a youth at the vicarage and insisted that a great part of “Vanity Fair” was written there.  He even pointed out the room in which he alleged the famous book was produced, and assured us that the great author had found the originals of many of his characters, such as Becky Sharp and Col.  Newcome, among the villagers of Hadley.  All of which we took for what it was worth.  Thackeray himself told his friend, Jas. T. Fields, that “Vanity Fair” was written in his London house; still, he may have been a visitor at the Hadley vicarage and might have found pleasure in writing in the snug little room whose windows open on the flower garden, rich with dashes of color that contrasted effectively with the dark green foliage of the hedges and trees.  The house still does duty as a vicarage; the small casement windows peep out of the ivy that nearly envelops it, and an air of coziness and quiet seems to surround it.  Near at hand is the home where Anthony Trollope, the novelist, lived for many years, and his sister is buried in the churchyard.