Take another case. There was a time when Our Lady of Walsingham had an extraordinary reputation, not only in England but in the Low Countries. Five English sovereigns sought her shrine: three Henries and two Edwards. Erasmus visited it in 1511, and wrote an account of it, which for wit, irreverence, and general impropriety could hardly be surpassed.[16] The cult lasted for 300 years, and when it was at its height pilgrims came over in great numbers to Yarmouth and King’s Lynn, and made their way along a _Via Sacra_ of noble churches and priories. The finest of eastern counties’ churches, in my recollection, is at Sawell, or Sall, within easy reach of Walsingham; and it was suggested that pilgrims were persuaded to drop a coin or two at churches on the road, whereon Sall flourished (Sall--profits--yes, I see; I leave it), as did the Lady Chapel at King’s Lynn, and the churches on the Palmers’ way from London and the South. When I saw the great church in 1876 it was going fast to decay, and the sum mentioned as necessary for repairs was alarming. The population in 1901 was 191. In another of these fine churches I found the Rector in much trouble. Bats had got into the roof and multiplied. The parish would gladly have retained the Pied Piper of Hamelin to rid them of their foes; besides ordinary pollution they had made the church their slaughter-house and their dining-room--the wings of moths, and all sorts of garbage lay about. “Bats!” said the Rector, who was a Biblical scholar; “Isaiah couples them with the moles, according to our translation, but I doubt whether _chephor peroth_ refers to moles.” “Perhaps it was the church mouse?” I suggested. “Bats,” he went on, after giving me a suspicious glance, “are clearly indicated by the word _atalleph_.” “It is _ystlumod_ in Welsh,” I said, not to be overcrowed by a Rural Dean, “and _Fledermaus_ in German; _flittermouse_ in Ben Jonson.” But the Rector was intent on murder, and heeded not my pedantic flippancies: “Bats,” he repeated, with a far-away look in his eyes. What a parody Calverley would have made: “They hunted for moths in the Rector’s garden, And though they possibly no harm meant, They littered the pew of the Churchwarden: They spoiled the gold of the Tenth Commandment.” That is a bad rhyme: I am not equal to the task. The case was serious: what did I suggest? I said it was rather out of my province: bats never built in schools: had he tried incense? His eyes were again fixed intently on me, but I gazed at the roof. It seemed that the good man was Low. How was I to know? Finally he gave me credit for guilelessness. “But what would the Archdeacon say?” I inferred that the Archdeacon also was Low. Certainly the bats were High. It is sad that I cannot carry the tale further. Did he try the remedy? I cannot but think that “good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke,”