From Puddletown through Tolpuddle (one of the numerous villages to which the Puddle or Piddle gives name), and we are quickly at Bere Regis, which Dr. Stukeley identified with the Roman _Ibernium_. This is the "Kingsbere" of the novels and the ancient seat of the Turbervilles, a family that flourishes still in Glamorgan, and of whom Tess was a fictitious descendant. Within the church, which has a remarkable carved roof, the gift of Cardinal Morton, who was born at Milborne Stileham, three or four miles away, are two canopied tombs of the Turbervilles. Half a mile to the north-east is Woodbury Hill, where was held the great sheep fair, the "Greenhill Fair" where Troy performed the part of "Dick Turpin" at the circus. At Bere the smuggler Owlett was hidden after his struggle with the excise officers, and it was selected as a hiding place for the women by Miller Loveday, should Napoleon's threatened invasion prove successful. Here, too, beneath the Cardinal's noble gift, Yeobright's father put such power into his playing of the bass viol as to cause the windows to rattle, and "old Pa'son Gibbons to lift his hands in his great holy surplice as natural as if he'd been in common clothes, and seem to say to himself, 'oh for such a man in our parish!'" Apart from its historical and literary associations Bere Regis is as charming a spot as exists in rural England, and one where the modern cultivation which demolishes the hedgerows and stubbs up the copses has not yet shown its evil presence. The old manor house of the Turbervilles has vanished, with the exception of a portion that still remains in Court Farm; and times have changed since the old race of manorial lords and squires were laid to rest in their family vaults. Here, as in most Dorset villages, the ancient families have died out or, owing to agricultural depression, have been driven into bankruptcy or exile. The manor houses have fallen into decay, with the exception perhaps, as here, of a solitary wing which serves as a modern farmhouse. On the tombstones in the churchyard you may read names once honoured in the countryside, and far beyond it, names that are rapidly becoming extinct, except as what Grant Allen would have called "verbal fossils". [Illustration: PORTISHAM]