the top; this is provided to drain back into the basin any drops of water that might be accidentally spilt at a christening." Some people delight to be informing, but the information they impart depends for its value on their special knowledge of special subjects. I observed that the stranger was carefully consulting a handbook when I approached him, which he put away in his pocket, and I thought to myself possibly the stranger has just read up about the font in that book, and is merely imparting to me second-hand information gleaned from it just for the self-importance of imparting it, and to show his cleverness. I might have done him an injustice, but he spoke in a manner so authoritative as to challenge criticism. Anyway I have not the implicit faith in handbooks most people have, for more than once I have found them wrong in facts beyond dispute. So I have examined for myself the "curious" projection, being a bit of an archaeologist, though not a learned one, and came to the conclusion that there was nothing curious about it, and that it had merely been intended to receive a hinge for a font cover. But such an explanation is perhaps too simple to be satisfactory to certain minds to which only the singular or mysterious appeals. [Illustration: AT "THE QUEEN'S HEAD."] Round the top of the font runs a much-worn inscription in long Lombardic, or other early lettering, of which I could make nothing; no more could the stranger, but he made excuse that the light was very poor; so it was. "If we only had a guide-book," I said suggestively, but he failed to take the hint. Leaving the church I noticed some picturesque alms-houses adjoining its quiet "God's Acre," built of brick but grey with age, of one story, uneven-roofed, with shapely chimney-stacks, which houses with their enclosed garden, full of flowers--and weeds--reminded me of Walker's famous picture "A Haven of Rest," though they were not the original of it. Then as the sun was setting I sought "mine inn." CHAPTER VI "Mine ease in mine inn"--King John's Castle--Greywell--Country odours--Hidden beauty-spots--The valley of the Kennett--A remote spot--Our picturesque villages--The charm of ancientness--Solitude and genius--Coate--Richard Jefferies' birthplace.