What the rooks find to talk about all day and every day might puzzle anyone who did not read the reports of Imperial Parliament; but those having once been read, there is no room for surprise. It is only when evening approaches that the rookery is stilled, and even then only after a preliminary clamour from home-coming birds, in conclave, that makes one's ears sing again. After that deafening rally the voices are heard singly, bubbling and gobbling, until at last, when the rim of the sun sinks down below the horizon, the colony is at rest. Leaving lonely Acryse amid a hoarse parting chorus from its rooks, we will turn our course towards Swingfield Minnis, and thence to St. John's, the scene of that lightest and brightest of the Legends, the "Witches' Frolic." We need expect to find no ruin, for Barham's description in the verse is altogether beside the mark. Thus he, in the character of Grandfather Ingoldsby, apostrophises it: I love thy tower, Grey Ruin, I joy thy form to see, Though reft of all, bell, cloister, and hall, Nothing is left save a tottering wall. * * * * * Thou art dearer to me, thou Ruin Grey, Than the Squire's verandah, over the way; And fairer, I ween, the ivy sheen That thy mouldering turret binds, Than the Alderman's house, about half a mile off, With the green Venetian blinds. There is no alderman's house in the neighbourhood, with or without Venetian blinds, but that matters little. It is by a succession of steeply rising and falling, winding and narrow country lanes that the Preceptory of the Knights Templars of St. John of Jerusalem, near Swingfield Minnis, is reached. Like so many other ancient religious establishments, it is now a farmstead. Not altogether picturesque, and wearing very few outward signs of antiquity, it might readily be passed by those not keenly in quest of it, except for the existence of the three tall Early English windows prominent in one of the gables. An inspection of the farmhouse proves that thrifty use has been made of the old buildings, the hall, the principal ancient feature, with fine old timber roof, being divided for domestic purposes into two floors. Modern walls and fireplaces combine to almost wholly alter the internal arrangements. A long, buttressed, monastic barn of great antiquity is pictured in Knight's _Old England_, published some sixty years ago, but it has long since disappeared in the insensate rage for "improvement," and there is very little of interest now to be seen outside the farmhouse. But whatever it lacks in picturesque aspect, the glamour of romance thrown over the spot by the legend redeems it from the commonplace. [Illustration: THE PRECEPTORY, SWINGFIELD MINNIS.]