Of the scant abbey ruins the only portion not wholly exposed to the weather is what looks like the crypt, with its fine and delicate Early English pillars and groined roof; but it has a fireplace, and from a label attached to its walls I learned it was the "Layman's Refectory." The rest of the ruins are roofless, and it is difficult to make out, with any certainty, even the site of the church--at least I found it so. On the greensward I noticed, level with the ground surface, a stone coffin vacant and exposed to the sky, presumably discovered there and left undisturbed save for the removal of its covering; this was hollowed out to the shape of a body, with a place for the head; probably it belonged to one of the stately abbots' dust and ashes long years ago, but the interior of the stone still preserves the chisel marks of the ancient mason, as sharp almost to-day as when first made. Somehow those marks so old, yet so clear, that but for the time-stains upon them might be of recent date, bridged over the centuries and brought the past quite close to me. Leaving the old abbey to its peaceful seclusion, we once more resumed our way and soon found ourselves at Farnham, far famed for its castle and its ancient coaching hostelry--"The Bush," to wit--and possibly also for hops and ale, but of these I am not so sure. "The Bush," says Thackeray in his _Virginians_, "is a famous inn which has stood in Farnham town for these three hundred years." But why I refer to this old house, in passing, is that its sign is the oldest of signs, which, in ancient days, consisted simply of a bush hung out at the end of a pole to show that wine, or ale, was sold there. Hence doubtless the saying of Shakespeare, "Good wine needs no bush."