He told of the foul desecration by the Roundheads, who used every species of havoc, plunder, and profanation,--pulling down the sacred effigies which were the glory of the western front, hacking to pieces the curious carvings of the choir, mashing the noses of the monumental statues, destroying the valuable evidences and records of the church and the city, shattering the glass of the costly windows,--save only that of the marvellous nine of the lady chapel, which a pious care was said to have removed to a place of safety. They kept courts of guard in the cross aisles, broke up the pavements, and every day hunted a cat with hounds throughout the church, delighting in the echoes from the vaulted roof; they wrapped a calf in linen, and "in derision and scorn of the sacrament of baptism," sprinkled it at the font and gave it a name. How the King, after the defeat of Naseby, came from Ashby-de-la-Zouche, and passed the night in the close,--how Cromwell's defaming crew completed the work of demolition and desecration, and smashed the old bell called "Jesus," with its legend "I am the bell of Jesus, and Edward is our King; Sir Thomas Heywood first causéd me to ring,"--how, finally, the chapter-house alone had a roof under which service might be said,--how the good Hackett on the first day of his bishopric set his own servants and his own coach-horses at work removing the rubbish, and never tired until in eight years' time the magnificence of the cathedral was restored, except for the forever irreparable loss of the decorations, and especially of the lady chapel windows, which all the cost of the restoration would not have sufficed to renew,--how the church was reconsecrated with great pomp and solemnity,--all this he told me in detail, and he would gladly have told more, for this Poor Brother had made these few rich historic acres nearly his whole world, and had peopled it with all who throughout the long ages had marred it or had made it. To have given "two good trees" for the rebuilding of the church was a title to his lasting and grateful recognition. But the light was fast waning, and the cathedral must be seen now or perhaps never. It was already past the hour for closing, but one of the vergers had formerly been a Poor Brother of St. John's, and my companion went to him to secure our admission.