When I told Mrs. D. that St. Giles was the patron saint of lepers, and that the present church stood not very far from the site of a hospital for lepers built by the wife of Henry I in 1118, she said she could well believe it. She was also not surprised to hear that the plague broke out in St. Giles's, and that the gallows named "Tyburn Tree" was set up near the aforesaid leper hospital. I asked her if she had ever read the "Newgate Calendar". She replied with regret that she hadn't, admitting that if there _was_ a book she would enjoy it was this particular one. In her estimation there was nothing like a good murder trial for taking you out of yourself. The "Newgate Calendar" had occurred to me in connection with "Tyburn Tree" by reason of references in that gruesome volume to the "last drink," a glass of ale which used to be presented to the criminals on their way to the gallows when they passed the gate of the leper hospital. Yes, there really _is_ some foundation for the eerie atmosphere of the churchyard of St. Giles. I always remember coming upon that gate at the end of Church Passage one autumn evening when twilight was merging into dusk. I had no idea where it led, and I mounted the steps and found myself in the old churchyard with something of the sensation which characterises the initial stage of a nightmare. The backs of squalid houses overlooked the place, and still figures, sunk in abysmal meditation, sat about on the benches. In the window of a studio-like building were some plaster casts of heads, and the white glimmering faces stared into the glimmering shades of evening which were stealing across the dingy burying-ground. I left the place without identifying it, and did not see it again for years. Then one day I stumbled on it unexpectedly, and discovered that my ghostly churchyard was St. Giles's in the Fields. Even on this afternoon of sweet promise St. Giles's straggling graveyard was not a cheerful spot. I have, by the by, never seen so many cats congregated in any corner of London as I saw in St. Giles's Churchyard. A villainous-looking old tom, with torn ears, the hero of many a fray, was seated on a large tomb abutting on to the path, and the first line of the epitaph chiselled on the stone arrested my attention. "Hold, passenger!" it began peremptorily, and I barred Mrs. D.'s path whilst I read:-- "Hold, passenger, here's shrouded in his hearse, Unparallel'd Pendrill through the universe."