"And what profession, sir, do you mean to take up?--law, like your friend--or what?" "I am going to travel for a year, my lord." "Travel! humph! Your good father has several sons, I think?" "Four younger sons, my lord; so much the worse for me." "I hope you set them a good example," said the bishop, drily. "I should venture to suggest that your father might want help with his estate." "He has a steward, my lord, an old servant." "Stewards mean money, don't they? and a gentleman with a small landed property cannot be overburdened with that article nowadays, more especially if he has five sons." Melville's brow clouded, and he would fain, if he had dared, given vent to some rather uncomplimentary adjectives, of which "old meddler" was one. "Here," said the bishop, "are the ruins of the old Hall, where, report says, the last abbot of Glastonbury was hanged. He was tried here by the king's orders, for suppression of some of the church lands which the king had seized. That," pointing to the end of the Palace, "is the part of the building which was blown down, or, rather, the roof blown in, upon one of my predecessors during the last century. Both Bishop Kidder and his wife were buried in their bed in the ruins. But not to dwell on these memories, I have pleasanter ones to recount. On that terrace walk, where we will now mount and take a view of the surrounding country, the pious Ken--that God-fearing and steadfast man--composed the hymns, which, morning and night, bring him to our minds." Melville Falconer had forgotten, if he had ever heard, those hymns; but Mr. Arundel said: "My mother will be interested, indeed, my lord, to hear I have been on the spot where those hymns had birth." "Ay," said the bishop; "and we must have her here one day and show her this fair place. One can imagine, as he gazed out on this prospect, that the saintly Ken was eager to call on every one to 'shake off dull sloth,' and rise early with the birds to offer the sacrifice of the morning." It was indeed a fair prospect towards which the bishop waved his hand. Fields of buttercups lay like burnished gold in the summer sunshine. Beyond these fields, known as the Bishop's Fields, was a belt of copse, and further still the grassy slopes of a hill, really of no very exalted height, but from its strongly defined outline and the sudden elevation of its steep sides from the valley below it, it assumes almost mountainous proportions, and is a striking feature in the landscape as seen from Wells and its neighbourhood. A wooded height, known as Tor Hill, rises nearer to the Palace, and then the line sweeps round to the Mendip range, which shuts in Wells on the north-east, and across which a long, straight road lies in the direction of Bristol.