CHARLES EDMUND _survived his beloved until April 7, 1903, aged 83. This also is his monument, he objects to more._ The living of Lamport is held jointly with that of Faxton, a good three miles away: a place with no road to it for the best part (or? “worst part”) of one of those three miles. Why, then, does the explorer explore in such forbidding circumstances? Aye, why indeed? I ask myself as, quartering a succession of phenomenally water-logged meadows in search of spots free from the fathomless mud, I make slow and painful progress, horribly aware that the way I have come is the only route back. Well, there is a reason in all things; even in this. In Faxton church there is a monument to Sir Augustine Nichols, Justice of the Common Pleas, who formerly resided here, and was poisoned in 1616, when on circuit at Kendal, by four women, to prevent him passing sentence of death on one of their relatives. Another monument is in Kendal church, where he is buried. [Illustration: FAXTON.] The effigy of him is kneeling at a desk, and on either side he is supported by figures representing Justice and Fortitude, with Temperance and Prudence above. Justice once held her appropriate scales, but they have been broken off. The villagers, to whom classic imagery was unknown, were firmly convinced that the scales represented the weighing of the poison that put an end to the judge. [Illustration: MONUMENT TO JUDGE NICHOLS.] [Sidenote: _FAXTON_] The little church of St. Denis, Faxton, stands on the edge of a wide, common-like expanse showing many traces of old foundations of buildings, and bordered by half-a-dozen cottages, most of them far gone in decay and deserted. There is no semblance at all of any roadway into the place. The church itself is rotting with damp and mildew, and giant fungoid growths, unreal and fantastic-looking as the imaginings of pantomime, fasten themselves upon its walls, and heave up the stones of the floor. An afternoon service every Sunday more than fulfils the needs of the few inhabitants. But the church, of the interesting period between the Early English and Decorated styles, shows many traces of beauty, and there are finely sculptured corbels, an ancient font, and a sand-table—on which, in the quaint educational methods of over a century ago, children were taught to form the letters of the alphabet with finger-tips in the sand. Returning to the main road from the muddy hazards and chances of Faxton, a steep descent leads down to the railway level-crossing at Lamport station, and thence steeply up again to the crest of Hopping Hill, where a “Traveller’s Rest” in the form of an elaborate wooden seat stands on the grass, inscribed, “Rest ye, wearie traveller. Jubilee, 1897. Reginald Loder.” It was the squire of the adjoining Maidwell Hall who placed the seat. They do not all jubilate who rest here, for I perceive the inscription, among others, “Sat here, pennyless, June 1st, 1906. J. West, stoney-broke. Pray for me.”