I also noticed when looking round that it was an interior rich in memorials to the long dead--old brasses and stone tablets on the walls, and some large monuments. By chance the most imposing of the tombs was so near my seat that with little difficulty I succeeded in reading and committing to memory the whole contents of the very long inscription cut in deep letters on the hard white stone. It was to the memory of Sir Ranulph Damarell, who died in 1531, and was the head of a family long settled in those parts, lord of the manor and many other things. On more than one occasion he raised a troop from his own people and commanded it himself, fighting for his king and country both in and out of England. He was, moreover, a friend of the king and his counsellor, and universally esteemed for his virtues and valour; greatly loved by all his people, especially by the poor and suffering, on account of his generosity and kindness of heart. A very glorious record, and by-and-by I believed every word of it. For after reading the inscription I began to examine the effigy in marble of the man himself which surmounted the tomb. He was lying extended full length, six feet and five inches, his head on a low pillow, his right hand grasping the handle of his drawn sword. The more I looked at it, both during and after the service, the more convinced I became that this was no mere conventional figure made by some lapidary long after the subject's death, but was the work of an inspired artist, an exact portrait of the man, even to his stature, and that he had succeeded in giving to the countenance the very expression of the living Sir Ranulph. And what it expressed was power and authority and, with it, spirituality. A noble countenance with a fine forehead and nose, the lower part of the face covered with the beard, and long hair that fell to the shoulders. It produced a feeling such as I have whenever I stand before a certain sixteenth-century portrait in the National Gallery: a sense or an illusion of being in the presence of a living person with whom I am engaged in a wordless conversation, and who is revealing his inmost soul to me. And it is only the work of a genius that can affect you in that way. Quitting the church I remembered with satisfaction that my hostess at the quiet home-like family hotel where I had put up, was an educated intelligent woman (good-looking, too), and that she would no doubt be able to tell me something of the old history of the town and particularly of Sir Ranulph. For this marble man, this knight of ancient days, had taken possession of me and I could think of nothing else.