“Wild Darrell,” they say, was arrested and brought to trial; but he managed to save his life by bribery, giving his whole estate to the judge who tried him in order to secure acquittal. But he did not live long after the trial. Still remaining in the neighbourhood, he gave himself up to the wildest debauchery in an endeavour to escape from the ghost of the murdered infant. Riding about the downs one night, they tell, the wraith of the child suddenly appeared in his path. His horse reared back in fright and threw its rider. The next morning they found him where he had fallen, with his neck broken. They say “Wild Darrell” still rides the country-side of nights, and that a baby’s ghost for many years haunted an oak panelled room in Littlecote Manor. But you must please yourself whether to believe this or not. At any rate Littlecote looks the sort of stately, romantic house that should be haunted. It lies in the peaceful Kennet valley, close by that stream so famous for its trout. A mile or two away rise the fine open Marlborough Downs with their many relics of ancient civilization. Three or four miles to the westward and you are in glorious Savernake Forest with its silent glades and its world famous avenues. Hungerford itself is a quiet, tidy little market town, little known to the tourist, yet a wonderfully convenient centre for visiting the country that surrounds it. Gallows-crowned Inkpen Beacon is but a few miles off, a hill that misses being a mountain by only forty odd feet. This is a magnificent country for the fisherman and the pedestrian; its hill tops are as lonely as the Welsh mountain summits, its leafy woods as unfrequented as an Alpine forest. Yet you may reach Hungerford in under a couple of hours from London; see Littlecote, the scene of “Wild Darrell’s” terrible action, wander over the hills, and return to Town between breakfast time and dinner on a summer’s day. [Illustration: _The Haunted Room at Littlecote._] [Illustration: Several monks gathered outdoors, one singing and the others singing other parts or listening.] A SONG OF THE XIII CENTURY. Somewhere about 700 years ago, a monk in famous Reading Abbey composed a song in praise of Spring. Its words and music were written down at the time and you may see them to-day at the British Museum. That song--they call it our oldest song--was “Sumer is icumen in,” and its author, antiquaries believe to have been, one John of Fornsete. They say this famous ancient “Round” was written some time between 1226 and 1240 when King Henry III was on the throne, and when the signing of Magna Carta was but a few years old in the memory of living men.