More amusing, perhaps, is the colony of white owls which haunt the chapel, and from their perch on the beams above the chancel deposit upon the altar unmistakable evidence of their visits. And now we come to Tappington. The valley opens wide, and on either side of it climb gently-rising hills clothed with thin woods, the Folkestone Road ascending the shoulder of the hills to the left. From it we look down upon a beautiful flat expanse of meadow-land; but no lodge-gate, no stone lions, no avenue, and certainly not the slightest trace of a park nor of a grand manor house can be seen. Only an old farmstead, half-smothered in ivy and creepers, is seen, in midst of the open meadow. It is a dream of rustic beauty, but--it is not the manor house of Barham's vivid fancy and picturesque pen. If, however, the rich details with which he clothed the old farm buildings of Tappington are lacking, it yet remains of absorbing interest, quite apart from the literary memories it embodies. The old house, and the remains of a former grandeur still visible in the half-obliterated foundations of demolished buildings, attract attention. There it stands, a squat building of mellowed red brick, crossed and recrossed with timbering. Its rust-red roof is bowed and bent, and, in place of the clustered chimneys of fiction, one short and stout chimney springs from the centre of the roof-ridge, while another crowns the gable-end. In the meadow are traces of an old well which, before the greater part of Tappington Manor House was, at some unknown period, pulled down, stood in a quadrangle formed by a great range of buildings. Creepers and ivy clothe the front of the old house, and a garden, full of all manner of old-fashioned flowers, extends on either side of the entrance. [Illustration: TAPPINGTON HALL.] The interior is of more interest than might be supposed from a glance at the outside. A magnificent old carved-oak staircase conducts upstairs from the lower rooms, and on the walls hang portraits--old portraits indeed, but quite fictitiously said to be Ingoldsbys, and in fact derived by some later owner of the property from Wardour Street, or other such ready source, where not merely Ingoldsbys, but ancestors of every kind, are procurable on demand. One, with an armorial shield and the name of "Stephen Ingoldsby" painted on it, glowers sourly from the topmost stair, where the blood-stained flooring still bears witness to an extraordinary fratricide committed here two hundred and fifty years ago. [Illustration: THE "MERCHANT'S-MARK" OF THOMAS MARSH OF MARSTON.]