The various religious houses were reproduced as in the dead town, and ere long the lusty life of the old place began again in earnest. The town became self-supporting with its shipbuilding and fishing, and its galaxy of representative craftsmen, and offered a splendid channel for trade to and from the mainland. Being a serviceable defensive port, it rehabilitated itself as a rendezvous for the navy, and combined with that importance the added attraction of being the best base on the coast for pirates. So well was the latter occupation organized that we read of one of the mayors of the town--one Robert de Battayle--being caught red-handed and summarily punished for acts of piracy. And what remains? Very little. At the northern end certain of the spacious streets are inhabited but generally grass-grown. These show the original divisions and dimensions; but southwards and westwards the majestic squares have become merely green fields, until at last the boundaries have been lost altogether. Ancient words of doom ring in our ears as we survey the scene: "Thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof.... They shall be left altogether unto the fowls of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them." The church, or rather a certain portion of it, still stands, with a generous margin of green surrounding it, and within its walls the fine canopied tomb of Gervase Alard, admiral of the Cinque Ports. A short distance down the road, south-east of the church, is the mansion known as "The Friars": in its beautiful grounds stands practically all that remains of the religious houses--the ivy-grown ruin of the chapel of the Franciscan Monastery. With this mansion and with the brothers Weston, the rogues who dwelt in it, all lovers of Thackeray's _Denis Duval_ will doubtless be familiar. The gates of the town still frown down on the approaching roads; but wall, castle, quays, all are gone, and the place is now, to use Wesley's words, "that poor skeleton of ancient Winchelsea". ====================================================================== [Illustration: WINCHELSEA CHURCH] The church, or a certain portion of it, still stands, with a generous margin of green surrounding it, and within its walls the fine canopied tomb of Gervase Alard, Admiral of the Cinque Ports. (_See page 48_) ======================================================================