Near to this modest memorial to a warrior, in startling contrast, is a stately altar-tomb with life-sized alabaster figures, beautifully sculptured, of a man in armour with his wife by his side, she being quaintly and picturesquely attired; the man's feet rest on a boar, his lady's on nothing, for the faithful hound that presumably once was there has disappeared. A portion of the long inscription in raised letters over this monument runs as follows:-- Here lyeth Thomas Actone of Sutton Esqre Who departed this lyfe in 1546 And Mary his wyfe who deceased on The XXVIII Aprill 1564.... Ioyse Their only daughter and heire being then of the Adge of XII yeres was espoused to Sir Thomas LVCY Of Charcot knight which Dame Ioyse in dutifull Remembravnce of theis her loving parents Hath erected this monument. Anno 1581. Here we have the knight whom Shakespeare ridicules under the title of Justice Shallow in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. What caused the Bard to hold up this Sir Thomas Lucy thus to ridicule no one appears to have discovered; the ancient story that the knight prosecuted Shakespeare for poaching his deer in Charlecote Park is out of court, for in those days there was neither park nor deer there. As I was leaving the church I noticed a brass plate against the west wall about three feet from the pavement, bearing record that On May 14th, 1886 The River Teme overflowed its Banks And rose to the height of the mark Placed below. And to this day certain Tenbury folk date events "from the year of the flood," which to the unknowing sounds strangely of a period immeasurably remote. I dined well at "The Swan" that night in the pleasant company of two anglers, one of whom had caught the big trout already mentioned. The simple dinner was excellently cooked, and my fellow-guests indulged in a bottle of good red wine; so also did I for sociability. Not but that Pure water is the best of gifts That man to man can bring; But what am I that I should have The best of everything? Dinner ended, in the spirit of the Roman of old I could say, "Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day."