There are many interesting old inns in this part of Somersetshire, notably in the town of Yeovil, where the "George" and "Angel" are _vis-a-vis_, and can compare notes as to whose recollections go back the farthest. The wide open fireplaces and mullioned windows of the former are of the time of Elizabeth or earlier, but the stone Gothic arched doorway and traceried windows of the latter can go a century better. But important as they both have been in their day, neither has had the luck or energy to keep pace with the times sufficiently to hold younger generations of inns subservient. The old "Green Dragon" at Combe St. Nicholas, near Ilminster, possessed a remarkable carved oak settle in its bar-parlour. It was elaborately carved, the back being lined with the graceful linen-fold panels. At the arm or corner were two figures, one suspended over the other, the upper one representing a bishop in the act of preaching. They were known as "the parson and clerk"; but when we saw the settle the "parson" was missing, having mysteriously disappeared some time before. The "clerk" was so worn out, having occupied his post so for centuries, that his features were scarcely recognisable; but who can wonder when he had been preached to for close upon four hundred years! To be "overlooked" in remote parts of Somersetshire means certain misfortune. Many a poor unoffending old woman, suspected of "overlooking" people, has been knocked on the head that her blood might be "drawn" to counteract the spell. Probably the parson's attitude aroused suspicion, and he was quietly put away; but as his head had not been broken neither had the spell, and the last we heard of the "Green Dragon" was that it had been burnt down. The old landlady we remember had a firm belief that the death of one of her sons was foretold by a death's-head moth flying in at the window and settling on his forehead when he was asleep in his cradle. The child, a beautiful boy, then in perfect health, was doomed, and her eldest son immediately set forth with his gun to shoot the first bird he chanced to see, to break the spell. However, that night the child died; and upon the wall in a glass case was the stuffed bird as well as the moth, a melancholy memento of the tragedy of thirty years ago. FOOTNOTES: [18] See _King Monmouth_. [19] Illustrations of these relics are in _King Monmouth_. [20] The open roof of the manor-house, now a cooper's shop, is also worth inspection. [21] See _The Flight of the King_ and _After Worcester Fight_. [22] See illustration in _King Monmouth_. [23] This was formerly the case at "Payne's Place," Worcestershire, a house mentioned in another chapter. IN WESTERN SOMERSET